


Inner Demon

by DeckofDragons



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Aborted Genocide Run, Chara Possessing Frisk, Cutting, Depression, F/M, Female Chara, Female Frisk, Frisk is Depressed because of Chara, Kinda Post-Soulless Pacifist Route, Older Frisk, Post-Pacifist Route, Sans Doesn't Remember Resets, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-06-04 04:43:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 22
Words: 31,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6641836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeckofDragons/pseuds/DeckofDragons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frisk had done so much to get everyone safely to the Surface. But once there Chara takes advantage of her lowered guard to to take complete control of Frisk's body. Chara Resets and kills almost every monster in the Underground. Eventually however Frisk is able to regain control of her body, she Resets and fixes everything. But Chara isn't defeated, she's still in Frisk's mind waiting for her opportunity to regain control. For nine years she's worked at wearing Frisk down and is now starting to come close to succeeding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dreams of Judgement Hall

Chara walked Frisk’s body into a large golden hallway with tall thick pillars on both sides. Warm light was streaming in through gold tinted windows to the left. But Chara didn’t take time to admire the view, just set her Restart point and moved on.

She paused when she saw Sans seemingly appear out of nowhere as he stepped out from behind a pillar. He had his hands in his pockets and seemed relaxed despite the circumstances. Wrapped loosely around his neck was the crimson scarf that had once belonged to his beloved brother Papyrus.

Papyrus who along with almost every other monster in the Underground was now dead, killed by Chara. Frisk had been forced to watch and feel as Chara used her body to murder everyone she cared about. She desperately wished she could’ve at least looked away, but she couldn’t. This was her body and she was forced to see, feel, and experience everything it saw, even if she wasn’t the one actually controlling it.

Frisk had done so much to get everyone up to the Surface but then when she had least expected it Chara had forcibly taken control of her body and Reset back to the beginning. She then used her newfound control to kill practically everyone in the Underground. Frisk had fought and fought against her but Chara had always resisted her attempts at regaining control. And now Frisk was probably going to have to watch as Chara killed poor Sans too.

“Heya, you’ve been busy huh?” Sans said. “So I’ve got a question for ya. Do you think even the worst person can change? That everyone can be a good person if they try?”

_Yes, Chara please you don’t have to do this. We can still Reset and fix everything,_ Frisk pleaded, trapped in her own mind unable to do anything other than beg Chara to stop.

Chara ignored both of them as she glared hatefully at Sans and clutched her knife.

“Well here’s a better question then,” Sans said when Chara didn’t answer. “Do you wanna have a bad time? Because if you take another step forward you’re _really_ not going to like what happens next.”

“ _He’s bluffing,_ ” Chara said in the mind space she and Frisk shared. She then grinned as she took a large step forward.

“Welp sorry old lady, this is why I never make promises,” Sans said with a sigh as he stared wistfully out the gold tinted window to the side. “It’s beautiful day outside today, birds are singing, flowers are blooming, on days like this kids like you…”  Sans turned his head to face them once more, the whites in his eyes had disappeared making his eye sockets look like bottomless pits of nothing. “Should be burning in _hell_.”

Without any other warning Sans released a barrage of attacks that caught Chara more than a little off guard. She was ripped to shreds before she even had time to get over her shock.

“What the fuck was that?” Chara said aloud using Frisk’s mouth as they restarted back at the beginning of the Hall.

_That’s what you deserve_ , Frisk replied. Of course she always felt the pain of dying too. Probably more keenly than Chara ever did since it was her body and Chara was only a ghost possessing it.

“I thought for sure he was going to be weak, this just got a whole lot more interesting,” Chara said with a grin as she started down the hall once more.

That was the first of many deaths, hundreds in fact. It was torture and Frisk desperately wished it would stop, that Chara would just give up. But Chara kept going at it, getting better and better at dodging his attacks as she made more attempts.

_You’re never going to beat him you know_ , Frisk said after the umpteenth restart. _He’s too strong and too fast for you to ever be able to land a hit on him. We’re going to be stuck like this forever until you finally give up._

“ _We’ll see about that_ ,” Chara replied. “ _He can’t keep dodging forever, all I need is to hit him once and he’s dust_.”

As Chara began to be able to last longer and longer against him, Sans started to look like he was tiring a little. It worried Frisk, she couldn’t bear the thought of him dying too, not after everything he was doing to stop Chara.

After another innumerable amount of painful deaths when Chara lasted longer than she ever had before, Sans paused in his attacks. “I know you didn’t answer me before,” he said. “But somewhere in there, there’s a glimmer of a good person inside you. Someone who once wanted to do the right thing, someone who in another time might have been a friend. So c’mon buddy, do you remember me? Please if you’re listening let’s forget all this, okay? Just lay down your weapon and well my job will be a lot easier.”

Frisk knew if she could she would’ve started crying.

“ _He’s sparing us, after everything we did he’s actually sparing us,_ ” Chara seemed to be almost laughing. “ _I won, I finally beat him. He’s giving up, I can finally end his pathetic life._ ”

As Chara prepared herself to rise the knife and close the distance between herself and Sans Frisk suddenly pushed all her will and determination against Chara. Chara distracted by her elation over her perceived victory was not prepared for this and Frisk was able to push her all the way back.

Frisk staggered a little as she _finally_ regained control of her body. She ignored Chara’s raging incoherent fury in the back of her mind as she tried to push back at Frisk for control.

_No never again,_ she told Chara as she dropped the knife. It made a loud echoey clanging sound as it hit floor. She showed Sans the palms of her hands signaling she was sparing him.

“You’re sparing me?” He said in the silence that followed.

Frisk nodded as she tried her best to hold back the tears that were welling in her eyes.

“Finally, buddy, pal, I know how hard it must be to make that choice, to go back on everything you’ve worked up to. I want you to know I won’t let it go to waste, c’mere pal,” Sans said as he opened his arms a little in an invitation to hug.

Feeling overwhelmed with emotion Frisk moved towards him. But before she could embrace him she felt a horrendous pain shoot through her chest. Looking down she saw one of Sans’ attacks growing out of the ground at his feet and impaling her, it was now the only thing keeping her from collapsing. Her blood looked awfully dark as it started to flow down its length and drip onto the floor.

Looking back up she saw Sans was grinning widely at her. “Get dunked on!” he taunted her with a laugh. “If we’re _really_ friends, you won’t come back.”

Ignoring the ripping pain in her chest and the coppery taste of blood in her mouth and throat Frisk weakly reached out and grabbed the corner of Sans’ blue coat. “Thank you Sans,” she said, tears blurring her vision as she smiled up at him. “Thank you so much for finally stopping her and helping me. I’ll fix this… I promise. I’ll fix it and I’ll never… let it happen… again.”

 

Frisk woke from the dream drenched in sweat and clutching at her chest where she felt in fading echoes of pain from the dream. After the events of the dream she had Reset and she had gotten everyone back up onto the Surface again.

So far she had been able to keep her promise to Sans, for a whole almost nine years now she’d been able to keep control of her body. But that didn’t mean Chara had given up or disappeared, she was still there in Frisk’s mind waiting for an opening.

“ _I’ll kill Sans one day,_ ” Chara said in Frisk’s mind. “ _I’ll kill Sans and then everyone else too just for spite._ ”

_No, I won’t let you_ , Frisk thought back at her.

“ _Yeah and what are you going to do to stop me? I gained control from you once and I can do it again, just you wait._ ”

They had literally had almost this exact conversion at least a hundred times over the past nine years. Chara was fiercely determined to eventually wear Frisk down. And Frisk was determined to never let it happen again, but the nightmares and Chara’s frequent taunts were slowly driving her insane.

“ _One day soon Sans will die, and you will feel and watch as he turns to dust by your hand. He won’t be able to fight back this time because you’re his_ precious _friend. He won’t understand why you’d want to kill him, and who knows maybe he won’t even be able to dodge in time. Of course I would like to drag his death out as long as possible but…_ ”

“Shut up,” Frisk said aloud as she pulled back her sleeve and used the small pocket knife she always carried with her to add another sallow but painful cut to her wrist. About a year ago she’d accidently discovered that sudden sharp pain could temporarily push Chara away, effectively silencing her. As a result Frisk’s arms now bore numerous scars from when Chara’s taunting had become too much to handle.

She made sure her friends and family never found out about this by always wearing long sleeves. They wouldn’t understand, they didn’t even know that Chara existed. And Frisk feared to say anything about her in case everyone would think she was crazy.

Shaking her head to clear her mind Frisk dragged herself out of bed and began getting ready for the day. The sun hadn’t quite risen yet but Frisk knew she’d not be getting anymore sleep tonight. Besides today was a big day, she was moving out of Toriel’s home and into a place all her own. She didn’t really want to be out on her own yet but she knew she couldn’t live with her adoptive goat mom forever.


	2. New Home

After getting ready for the day Frisk went down to the kitchen for some breakfast. Shortly after she’d finished Toriel came down the stairs.

“I’m going to miss you so much Frisk,” she said.

“Mom you’re still going to see me every day at the school, and I’ll be sure to visit occasionally,” Frisk said as she returned her mother’s hug.

“I know but… you’re just growing up so fast,” Toriel said. “Anyway you have everything packed and ready to go?”

“No not yet, I just have a few more things I need to pack and then I’ll be ready to go,” Frisk said.

It took them an hour or so to get the rest of Frisk’s stuff into the moving van. Toriel had thoughtfully provided her with some pieces of furniture that she no longer needed so that Frisk’s new house wouldn’t be barren.

When they got to Frisk’s new home Undyne, Alphys, Sans, and Papyrus were all already waiting for them. They had all come to help her move in and to welcome her to her new home.

“Hey Frisk how’s it feel to finally be an adult? You’ve got a place all your own with no one to tell you want to do anymore,” Undyne said in way of greeting.

“It’s feels great,” Frisk lied. In truth she didn’t feel like she was really ready to be an adult yet. She didn’t want to move out on her own. But ever since she had gotten a job as a teacher’s assistant at Toriel’s school on top of her job of being ambassador for the monsters she definitely had enough money to live on her own. And everyone had expected her to want to move out too, Undyne had kept asking her about it over the past few months and even Toriel had brought it up a few times.

“The Great Papyrus has made some of his world famous spaghetti for you welcoming home party,” Papyrus cheerily informed her. Over the years he had actually become a pretty competent chef and had recently opened his own spaghetti shop.

“You’ll still come by occasionally and watch anime with me and Undyne right?” Alphys asked her nervously.

“You better,” Undyne threatened.

“Of course I’ll still watch anime with you guys,” Frisk assured them.

As everyone else dispersed Sans approached her at last, “You sure you going be okay living all by you self?” he asked.

“Yeah I’ll be fine,” Frisk replied.

Over the years Sans had become her closest and dearest friend and sometimes she felt he was the only one who really kind of understood her. She had often considered telling him about Chara but never did so because she was afraid of what he might think of her.

“Okay, but if you ever get lonely me and Pap live just the street. Feel free to stop by whenever you want,” he said.

Frisk had chosen this particular house mostly because of how close it was to where Sans and Papyrus lived. She liked the thought of being able to walk over and see Sans whenever she wanted to.

With that everyone started helping her bring her boxes inside. Well everyone except Sans who instead took a ride on the couch Toriel had given her. And with Undyne and Toriel doing all the heavy lifting it took only a little over an hour for all her boxes and furniture to be neatly placed in her new home, she still had to unpack most of it but that could wait until later. Everyone then sat around in her living room and had a small but wonderful house warming party for her.

Surrounded by her friends and family Frisk could sometimes pretend that nothing was wrong with her life. She could block out thoughts about what Chara might do if she ever did gain control of her body again. For a little while at least she could be happy.

Frisk didn’t think any of them even suspected there was anything wrong with her. None of them knew about what Chara had made her do to them or what Chara still wanted to do to them. There was a time when she thought that maybe Sans might be aware of some of it. But if that were the case there was no way he’d be so nice to her all the time.

Alas though as the day wore on all her friends and family needed to go back to their own lives. Before leaving they all once more wished her luck and happiness in her new home. Part of her wanted to ask at least one of them to stay with her even if it was just for tonight, but she didn’t want to be selfish with their time. They had all already sacrificed half their day to help her move in asking anymore of them would be too much.

Sans and Papyrus living the least amount of time away were the last to leave. “You sure you okay spending the night all alone?” Sans asked her quietly before leaving.

Frisk wanted to tell him ‘no’, that she wanted him to spend the night tonight but she didn’t. “Yeah, of course I’ll be fine. Why wouldn’t I be?” she said instead.

“I know you sometimes have nightmares and stuff. And being in a house all by yourself…” Sans shrugged.

“I haven’t had a nightmare like that in ages,” Frisk lied again. In truth she still had nightmares pretty much every night, but she had mastered the art of not waking up screaming and crying from them anymore.

“Okay I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then,” Sans said before heading out the door, closing it behind him.

Leaving her all alone in her empty house. Leaving her alone with Chara.

“ _So weak little crybaby Frisk finally has a place all her own. Everyone thinks you’re so adult, if only they knew the truth. If only they knew how scared you are of being alone. If only they knew you_ killed _them once upon a time only to Reset proving that their lives don’t really matter._ ” Chara’s voice almost sounded real in the dead silence left by her friends’ departures.

_I didn’t kill them_ you _did. Not me_ , _I didn’t kill anyone,_ Frisk said in her mind.

“ _Oh but I used your body to do it. And if you ever told them about me do you honestly think they’d believe I was ghost possessing you? No they would think you were crazy and they’d have you locked up in a mental ward where you belong."_

Frisk tried her best to push Chara out of her mind as she started the process of unpacking. But as always any attempts to push Chara away only made her more insistent on being heard and felt.

“ _One day when I finally gain control again, all your precious friends and family well be_ so _confused when I kill them. And they’ll believe it’s you doing it. They’ll hate you in their last moments of life before I turn them to dust._ ”

_Shut up, just shut up._ Frisk yelled in mind as she pulled out her pocket knife again. _Stop talking about killing them, I’ll never let you do that._

“ _What would they all think if they knew about this huh? What would Sans think? He’d probably…_ ” Chara’s taunt was cut off by a particularly painful cut down the side of Frisk’s arm.

Frisk winced as she watched the blood drip down her arm a little, she hadn’t meant to cut that deep. She would need to bandage this so that it wouldn’t bleed through her shirt sleeve.

She grabbed a wad of paper towels to soak up the blood while she made her way through her boxes looking for a bandage.

After bandaging her arm she once more set to work unpacking everything. Originally she had been planning to only unpack half of it today and finish tomorrow but she didn’t feel like going to bed yet so she decided to just finish it now. It wasn’t until almost midnight that she finally had everything put in place and she allowed herself to crawl into bed.

“ _Goodnight Frisk, sweet dreams,_ ” Chara’s voice taunted her as she drifted off to sleep.


	3. Headaches

Not surprisingly Frisk once more dreamed of Chara’s attempt at committing genocide on the monsters of the Underground. She hated how often she had the dream and how vivid it always was. She suspected the reason it felt so real was because Chara in her mind made it so. It ended the way the dream always ended, when Sans killed her after stopping Chara. And as always she awoke before the sun was even up with the ghost pain in her chest from where she’d been impaled.

Frisk often wished she could thank Sans properly for stopping Chara but of course she could never bring it up with him. But still she felt eternally grateful towards him for it anyway, even if technically it never happened because she’d Reset.

With a sigh Frisk dragged herself out of bed and went into the kitchen to brew herself some coffee after taking a few seconds to remember where she’d put the coffee pot. As she sipped her coffee, black and strong the way she liked it, she tried not to think about Chara or the dream. But as always trying not to think about it only made her think about it more.

She’d had the dream almost every night for the past nine years or occasionally just parts of the dream. Sometimes she’d only dream about the parts where Chara killed everybody or just the part where Sans killed Chara over and over again. But most of the time the dream started at the beginning of the Underground and ended with Sans impaling her.

“ _You have nightmares about your best friend brutally killing you hundreds of times almost every night, but somehow you don’t hate him, you don’t even fear him. How can you possibly stand him after all that?_ ” Chara said interrupting the peacefulness of early dawn.

_He was killing you, not me. And you deserved every death,_ Frisk replied.

“ _Oh but you felt every single death too. And the last time, when you were sparing him, he betrayed you and killed you too._ ”

_I’m not mad at him about that and I certainly don’t blame him for it. He had no reason to be kind to me after what you did using my body._

Yeah Sans had technically caused her a lot pain and torment, and reliving those moments in her dreams were awful. But she could never feel upset at anyone other than Chara over it.

“ _Still though, how do you think he would feel if he knew you dreamed about him killing you all the time? And when he heartlessly betrayed you?_ ”

_It doesn’t matter what he would think, technically none of that ever happened. I Reset it so it doesn’t matter anymore._

“ _If it doesn’t matter why do you still feel guilty about it? Why do you feel so bad about something that ‘doesn’t matter anymore’? You have those nightmares all on your own, I just have to make them feel more real._ ”

Frisk chose not to respond this time. She was tired of Chara and whished more than anything to just be rid of her. But alas there was no permanent way to banish her.

“ _Oh so you’re going to try to ignore me now, are you?_ ” Chara asked after several minutes had gone by.

Frisk made a point to focus her mind on finishing her coffee and cleaning the mug and coffee pot without acknowledging Chara. She couldn’t ignore her forever but if she got too annoying Frisk could always use pain to drive her away for a little while at least.

“ _Try ignoring this,_ ” Chara said before pushing her will against Frisk’s in an attempt to once more gain control of her body. With an effort Frisk pushed back and after a little while managed to win against her. As long as Frisk had the position of being in control she had the advantage, but still it was getting harder and harder to repel Chara. And lately Chara had been getting closer to wining every time they fought like that and Frisk was beginning to worry that she couldn’t hold out against her forever.

Frisk winced as her head blossomed with pain, she immediately started looking for where she’d put her migraine medication. Pitting her will against Chara’s gave her blinding headaches that had gotten worse over the years. Normal pain pills did nothing for her now and she’d been on a prescription pain killer for almost four years. And had just recently been upgraded to a stronger one.

After taking one with a glass of water she dragged herself back into her blessedly dark room and collapsed on the bed. She lay there in misery unable to think past the horrendous pain pounding in her head until finally at last she was able to fall asleep.

 

She was awoken a few hours later when her phone vibrated once loudly on the table signaling she had a text from somebody. Head foggy from her meds and sleep she reached over and pulled the phone off charge.

The text was from Sans and read, _“hey frisk whats up”._

_“Not much, you?”_ Frisk texted back.

“ _bored wanna come over and hang out after im done at the lab_ ” he replied. He had a job working with Alphys in a lab. Apparently they worked on important government stuff.

“ _Sure._ ” Frisk replied, too bad she couldn’t go over there now.

“ _k see you when i get back_ ”

Sans normally got off work at around five in the afternoon meaning Frisk had like half the day to wait. But hey at least she had something to look forward to now.

With a heavy sigh Frisk forced herself out of bed and into the kitchen to make herself something to eat. She had no idea how she was going to spend the rest of day, it was Sunday so obviously she didn’t have any work to do at the school.

She could go to her fancy ambassador’s office but they didn’t really need her there either. And on the rare occasion that they did they would just call her on her cell phone. Relationships between humans and monster were pretty good for the most part. There had been a few problems at first but they had mostly been sorted out over the years. Other than a small group of prejudiced people everyone got along most of the time.

She couldn’t go hang out with Alphys and Undyne either because they would both be at work too. Alphys at the lab and Undyne as a cop.

Really the only place she could go was back to Toriel’s house. But she had just moved out of there and didn’t want to appear desperate or lonely by running back so soon. Besides she couldn’t be bothered to drive anywhere right now anyway.

She had no other option than to stay home today. So after eating she just sat there on her couch staring at the blank T.V. screen. She hadn’t had time to set it up yesterday and didn’t have enough energy to do it now.

Eventually she was broken out of her melancholy state when she got another text message, this time from Toriel. “ _How’s your first day in your new home?_ ” it read.

“ _Great, even though I’m kind of bored._ ” That was the understatement of the century.

“ _Well if you’re bored you can come by and hang out for a bit, if you want._ ” Toriel texted back.

“ _Nah, I’ll be fine._ ” Frisk replied.

“ _Okay but if you need anything feel free to call or text._ ” Toriel replied.

Between the tiredness her migraine medication always made her feel and being bored she ended up falling asleep on the couch. She woke up shortly after four-thirty and deciding that was close enough got ready to leave the house and walk to Sans and Papyrus’ place. Her desire to see Sans outweighed her unwillingness to move.

It was a cold day out as winter was starting to set in. But luckily she didn’t have to wait long before Sans showed up in his new car. And Papyrus wouldn’t come back home for another hour or two, meaning Frisk could have some alone time with him.

“Hey Sans, how was work?” she asked as she followed him inside the house. They sat on the living room couch next to each other to watch some T.V. and hang out.

“Heh, it was fine I guess.” Sans shrugged. “How was your first day living by yourself?”

“Eh, it was… all right, I guess.”

“That bad huh?”

“No it was fine,” Frisk said. “It’s just I had a migraine this morning so I haven’t really felt super well today.”

“You’ve been having those a lot lately, shouldn’t you go see a doctor or something?”

It was true, Frisk had been having migraines more frequently over the past couple of weeks. Probably because Chara believed she was starting to get close to being able in win against her in their battle of wills.

“The doctors have never been able to do anything about them,” Frisk said. Over the years the various doctors who had examined her had never found a cause or a cure. Of course she knew the cause: Chara, but she could never tell anyone.

“Yeah but…” Sans said obviously still concerned.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s not a big deal.” Frisk appreciated his concern but didn’t want him to worry about her.

She ended up hanging out with Sans and Papyrus while lazing around their house for the rest of the day until it was starting to get dark out. Being lazy with Sans was always different from being lazy by herself. For one his jokes and generally relaxed manner always helped her feel relaxed too, especially after a stressful day. And another thing was because of Chara’s _extreme_ dislike for him she’d often leave Frisk alone when they together.

But once Frisk got back home and was getting ready to head for bed Chara made her unhappiness with being shoved to the back of Frisk’s mind all day known. “ _Fucking Sans, I can’t wait until I can finally kill him. I’m so tired of his stupid jokes, I can’t believe you actually find them funny or charming in any way._ ”

_Shut up,_ Frisk said loudly in her mind. She hated it when Chara insulted Sans like that.

“ _When he’s finally dead I’m going be so fucking happy. Oh I can’t wait to see the look on his face as we kill him. I imagine your reaction will be quite funny too. Soon Frisk soon, I’ll be able to kill him and there’s nothing you can do to stop me._ ”

_No! I’ll never ever let you hurt him or anyone else,_ Frisk said as she cut herself again.

This had to stop, Chara had to be stopped. Frisk had often considered running far, far away to where even if Chara did gain control she’d not be near any of Frisk’s loved ones. But then they might look for her or Chara could just travel back to them. So it would only delay her, not stop her. If only there was a way to permanently remove Chara from her mind.


	4. A Possible Solution

The next day she went to her job at the human and monster school Toriel had founded years ago when they’d arrived on the Surface. Frisk had finished getting her teaching degree a couple months ago but couldn’t get a job as an actual teacher yet, not until a spot opened up. So she contented herself with being an assistant or occasionally substitute for now.

She primarily worked in the part of the school for elementary students but occasionally subbed for the older students too. She liked working with kids and wished she could have some of her own one day. But as long as Chara existed in her head that could never happen. It was one of many, many things Chara ruined for her.

She had just finished explaining how to do a math problem to a group of young students who’d been having trouble with it when Chara suddenly pushed her will against hers in a bid to regain control. Chara had remained quiet all day so Frisk was taken by surprise and had to scramble to not lose her grip on her body.

“ _Well it was worth a try,_ ” Chara said before the pain of the headache drowned her out.

“You okay Miss Frisk?” a cute little bunny monster child asked her.

“Yeah I’m fine,” Frisk lied as she forced herself to her feet. She then informed the teacher in the classroom that she needed to head out for a bit. Because her Mom was principle of the school all of the teachers at least knew of her and her migraine problem and this wasn’t the first time she’d had one while working at the school.

Unfortunately the nurses’ office was a long ways away and by the time she got there she could barely walk. The pain in her head made her feel like she was going to vomit, the light felt like daggers in her eyes and every sound seemed a thousand times louder than it should.

The school nurse, who was more than a little familiar with her migraine issue, immediately led her to the wonderfully dark back room. Where she handed Frisk a cup of water so she could take her pain meds that she always carried with her these days. She then left gently closing the door behind her.

Frisk lay down on the bed feeling sorry for herself. Normally she didn’t have migraines two days in a row. But Chara pressuring her for control was starting to get more and more frequent lately. In fact this time Chara had gotten closer to winning than she ever had before. Frisk needed to find a permanent solution, fast.

 

Frisk woke up from her nap a couple hours before school was set to let out. She forced herself out of bed and back into the classroom. Just because she was tired and miserable didn’t mean she could skip out on doing her job.

When at last it was finally time to go home Frisk still felt awful and just wanted to lay down and do nothing for an hour or two. But before she could collapse in misery on her bed she had to get there.

“ _You can’t stop me_ ,” Chara taunted her as she drove out of the school parking lot. “ _You’re starting to slip, you’ll lose someday soon and then you know what’ll happen._ ”

_No don’t, please don’t,_ Frisk begged. It was all so unfair. What had she ever done to deserve any of this? Sometimes she wished it would all just end so she wouldn’t have to deal with it anymore.

“ _When I finally do gain control of your body again which one of your friends do you think I should kill first? It’d be easiest to kill Sans first but then I wouldn’t be able to get proper revenge for what he did to me. So I’m thinking probably his brother, and this time we’ll most likely get to see his reaction to it. What do you think he’ll do when he thinks you’ve killed his beloved brother? Or maybe we could…_ ”

“Stop! Just stop _please_ ,” Frisk begged aloud wishing she could silence Chara, but couldn’t because she was driving. “Please don’t, please.”

Frisk wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take. Over the past nine years it had gotten worse and worse and Chara had kept getting stronger and more insistent. And now that Chara was starting to get close to gaining control again Frisk desperately needed to find a solution.

“ _You think begging me to stop is actually going to work? Ha, I’ll never give in to your weak pleading. The only way you’ll ever be able to stop me is to kill yourself, which of course you’re too much of a coward to ever do,_ ” Chara said derisively.

That was it! If Frisk died then so did Chara. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. She was pretty sure their powers to Reset and rewind time when they died wouldn’t work on the Surface. So death would be a permanent solution to the problems caused by Chara.

“ _You’re being awfully quiet all of a sudden._ ” Chara pointed out worriedly. “ _You can’t honestly be thinking about… doing anything drastic like killing yourself or something, can you?_ ”

“I uh… need to think about it,” Frisk whispered aloud as she pulled into her driveway.

“ _What!? No, you wouldn’t_ dare _do something like that. What would your friends think huh? What would_ Sans _think if you did something like that?_ ”

_It doesn’t matter what they would think, they’d finally be safe from you._

“ _No you don’t have the guts to do anything like that. You’ll chicken out if you ever try it. You’re too much of a coward, not to mention all you’re stupid friends would hate you if you did something like that and you know it._ ”

Frisk didn’t wait for Chara to berate her anymore before pulling down her sleeve and giving herself another cut. She had a lot to think about and she couldn’t have Chara bothering her while she did so.

She went to the kitchen and pulled out a bottle of wine. It was her last one so she’d have to go get more soon. When in high school she had discovered that alcohol was another way she could sometimes deal with all the stress Chara caused her, even though she was careful to make sure she never became dependent on it. But after today she _really_ needed a drink or two and decided to indulge a little. After pouring herself a large glass full she sat on the couch to think about things.

She’d never considered… suicide as an option before, mostly because it had never occurred to her until today. It made sense though, Chara couldn’t take control of her body if she was dead. But did she really want for it to all end?

Frisk was a little shocked to find she didn’t know the answer to that question. Chara made her life a living hell but her friends and family would be sad if she died. Friends and family who might get hurt or worse if Chara ever gained control of her body.

But what would Sans think if she killed herself? He definitely wouldn’t be very happy with her, but Chara’s extreme hatred for him would make him a prime target if she ever did gain control again. Yeah Sans could take care of himself, he’d proven that already when he stopped Chara the first time, but what if Chara caught him by surprise? And Sans might be reluctant to fight back this time because they were friends. And he didn’t know about Chara so he would think it was actually her trying to hurt him and Frisk didn’t think she could bear to have him think that about her.

She thought long and hard about it for the next hour or so before deciding she wanted to walk over to Sans’ house and talk to him. She’d drunk almost the entire bottle of wine by now and was a little unsteady on her feet as a result but it was only a five minute walk so it didn’t matter. Besides she could drink a lot more than that before becoming truly drunk.

So she walked over to Sans’ house and rang the doorbell. She had to ring it a couple more times before she heard the muffled sounds of Papyrus yelling at Sans to answer the door. Based off the time Papyrus would probably be in the kitchen making supper so it was up to Sans to get the door.

It was a few seconds later before Sans finally opened the door. “Why don’t you just come in? You know where we keep the spare key,” he said as he let her in.

“I uh didn’t want to be rude,” Frisk replied.

“Well I’m too much of a lazybones to answer the door every time you come over,” Sans said as he flopped back on the couch.

“Well okay fair point,” Frisk said sitting on the couch next to him. She was already starting to feel a little better just being here.

“Sans who was at the door?” Papyrus asked as he poked his head out of the kitchen. “Oh hey Frisk, you’re just in time, dinner will be done soon.”

“Let me guess, it’s spaghetti,” Frisk said slurring a little because of the earlier bottle of wine.

“Well of course what else would it be,” Papyrus replied before disappearing back into the kitchen.

“Is there a reason you’re drunk today?” Sans asked her.

“I’m not drunk, just a little tipsy,” Frisk protested. “I had a really… rough day today and I needed a drink to calm my mind a little and help not think about things.”

“Anything you wanna talk about?”

Here it was, an opportunity to tell Sans all her woes. Part of her wanted to unload everything to him; the nightmares, Chara and everything she was planning, and now her newfound thoughts of suicide. Some irrational part of her felt like maybe Sans could help her somehow, but she knew that was bogus. There was no way she could tell him or anyone else any of that.

“No, I’m fine,” she said instead forcing herself to smile.


	5. Goodbye

She thought about it a lot over the next month or so. And the more she thought about it the more appealing the idea became. There really was no other way to stop Chara permanently, and the thought of dying didn’t actually bother her all that much. Her only real concern was that she’d make her friends and family sad, but better sad than dead.

Every time Chara suspected her of thinking about it she’d get furious, making her displeasure known through all kinds of taunts and insults. She’d constantly tell Frisk that all her friends would hate her if she killed herself. Frisk knew that wasn’t true, they’d be sad sure but they wouldn’t hate her, or least she thought they wouldn’t.

It was on a Sunday night as she was about to drift off to sleep when Chara suddenly tried to wrest control from her again that decided it. Chara’s attempts had grown far too frequent and she’d gotten far too close too many times, something had to be done.

After taking her pain pills and collapsing back into bed Frisk felt a little better, tomorrow it she’d end it all. She’d ensure her friends would be safe from Chara and she’d end all the pain in suffering Chara was constantly putting her through.

For once that night she didn’t have the usual nightmare, maybe because of her pain pills or maybe because of her decision to end it. She actually managed to sleep the whole night through too, in fact she had slept in for a few hours and was late for work. Not that that mattered anymore, but still Toriel had left her several texts and missed calls. So Frisk decided she’d call her back needing to wish her farewell anyway.

“Hey Mom, sorry I didn’t go to the school today. I’m not feeling well and I accidentally slept in,” Frisk said when Toriel had picked up the phone.

“Oh that’s okay, if you’re not feeling well just stay home today. I just wanted to make sure you were all right,” Toriel assured her.

“Thanks,” Frisk said. “And uh Mom I love you.”

“Oh, I love you too dear and I hope you feel better soon,” Toriel replied.

After hanging up Frisk put her phone back on her desk. Toriel would be devastated when she was gone, but it was for the best.

“ _You’re not really going to…_ ” Chara angrily began but Frisk cut her off with a small cut to the wrist. Frisk didn’t need Chara berating her right now.

Frisk went into the bathroom and grabbed a razor blade, her knife probably wasn’t sharp enough. She then went back into her room and sat at desk. Her hands were shaking as she pulled back her sleeve and hovered the razor blade over her wrist.

She took a deep breath as she prepared to cut her cut open the vein. But wait, shouldn’t she leave some kind of note or something apologizing for making everyone sad?

Hands shaking she placed the razor on the table and pulled out a pen and paper. She spent several long minutes thinking about what she should write and after several drafts had a note she thought conveyed everything that needed to be said.

 

> _Dear friends and family,_
> 
> _I’m really sorry everyone, I know you must be very sad and confused right now but I assure you it’s better this way. I wish I didn’t have to do this, but I do and I can’t really explain why to you. Just know I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t have to._
> 
> _Mom thank you for adopting me and taking care of me all these years. I love you very much and I just want you to know this isn’t your fault, so try not to be too sad about it._
> 
> _Asgore I know you and Mom are still estranged from each other and as a result I don't get you see you very often, but you've still always been very kind to me so thank you._
> 
> _Alphys thank you for being my friend and introducing me to anime. I’ve had great fun watching it with you and Undyne over the years._
> 
> _Undyne thank for being my friend as well and for teaching me how to cook. I hope you and everyone else can forgive me for having to do this._
> 
> _Papyrus you’ve always been a great friend to me. You helped me befriend Undyne and you’ve always believed in me so thank you._
> 
> _And Sans, I don’t think I could ever truly express how grateful I am for everything you’ve done for me. You’re my best friend and I hope you’re not too upset about this._
> 
> _And now guys as sorry as I am to leave you like this, I have to. Just know that I love all of you very much and I don’t want you to grieve for me after I’m gone. It’s better this way, I promise._
> 
> _Love Frisk_

Frisk folded the paper up and placed it in an envelope. She wrote everyone’s names on it and placed it on her nightstand in clear view of anyone looking around her room.

She picked up the razor blade once more but hesitated again. There were still some things she wanted to tell Sans and not the others, she needed to explain to him at least a little of why she had to do this. So she pulled out another sheet of paper and penned another note to just him. She placed it in its own envelope with his name on it and put it underneath the other one.

It was after midday when she finally settled down to do it. She placed the razor vertically against her wrist, she knew for it to work she’d have to cut the vein in half. Taking a deep breath she pressed down on it and pulled it down. It hurt like hell, but between her migraines and dying hundreds of times in her dreams she could take it.

She felt nauseous as blood starting pouring from her wrist and dripping down onto the floor. But quickly before she lost her nerve she took the razor in her other hand and repeated the action on her other wrist.

There she’d done it, no going back now. All she had to do now was wait and it’d all be over.

She sat there for a couple minutes trying to ignore the pain as her life blood slowly leaked out onto the floor around her. She saw her phone on the desk in front of her and on a whim she picked it up using a towel so she wouldn’t get too much blood on it. Looking at her contacts she decided it wouldn’t hurt to talk to Sans one last time, he’d be at work right now but he almost never turned his phone off.

He picked up after the third ring, “Hey Frisk what’s up? Shouldn’t you be doing teacher stuff right now or something?” he said.

“Yeah but I’m not feeling super well so I stayed home today. And well I decided I wanted to call you and maybe chat for a bit if you’re not too busy.”

“Yeah I’m not too busy, I can chat for a few minutes,” Sans replied. “Is there something specific you want to talk about?”

“No not really. So how’s work at the lab going? You working on anything interesting?”

“Alphys thinks she may have possibly found a way to un-amalgafy the Amalgamations. So she’s called all of them over so we can run some tests and stuff on them.”

“Really? That’s great. Do you think it’ll work?” Frisk asked. She was happy that maybe at least the Amalgamations and their families would be happy soon.

“We’re not sure yet, but it’ll be tricky. The hardest part is going to be ungluing their souls. But if Alphys' idea works it might be possible.”

Just then Frisk heard the muffled sound of Alphys probably scolding Sans for being on the phone when he was supposed to be working. “Uh sorry Frisk, I gotta go now. Alphys needs my help with something.”

“That’s okay. But uh Sans thank you for everything you’ve ever done for me and um goodbye,” Frisk said before quickly hanging up. She then turned her phone completely off in case he tried to call her back. Those final words to him might make him worry a little but she’d had to say them.

She then pocketed her phone and decided she’d wait to die while laying on her bed instead of sitting at her desk. As she stood up a wave a dizziness passed through her and she almost fell back into the seat. After she waited for her vision to clear she made her way over to her bed and lay down on her back. She made sure one arm was dangling off and the other was sideways so that it’d keep steadily leaking blood.

She was vaguely bothered by the fact that her once clean white sheets would now be stained with blood. She really should’ve found a less messy way of ending it, but it was too late now. And besides she wouldn’t be able to care about it for too much longer anyway.


	6. Better This Way

Sans was bothered by Frisk’s parting words to him on the phone earlier and could no longer focus on the task at hand. There was something not right about the way she’d said them. He didn’t think he’d ever heard her say ‘goodbye’ before, it was always more like ‘see you later’ or something similar. And it had sounded so… final, as if she didn’t expect to see him for a very long time or perhaps ever again.

That coupled with how subtly off she’d been acting the past month or so was driving him crazy. He hadn’t been able to get her to talk about whatever had been bothering her for the past month and he had no idea what it might be. So this just made him even more worried about her than he already was.

He tried calling her back but she’d apparently turned her phone off as it went straight to voice mail. Calling her home phone got no response either.

“Is something wrong Sans?” Alphys asked him.

“It’s nothing,” he assured her as he tried to focus once more.

But after a little over half an hour he couldn’t take it anymore. Something was up with Frisk and he had to make sure she was all right. He could always check on her after work but it was bothering him right now. And it wouldn’t take very long to ensure himself that she was perfectly fine, that she had just sounded odd because she’d had another migraine or something.

“Alphys I’m heading out for a bit, I need to check on something,” he said.

“Um okay, when are you coming back?” she asked him.

“Ten minutes maybe, might be longer. I don’t know.” Then before Alphys could ask him anymore questions he walked through the closest door taking a ‘shortcut’ to outside Frisk’s house.

Her car was still in the driveway and there weren’t any footprints in last night’s snowfall, meaning she was definitely still at home. He rang the doorbell.

As he waited for her to answer he thought about what he would say to explain why he had shown up at her house all of a sudden like this. He’d been here a couple times previously but most of the time she went to his place to hang out, and he’d never shown up out of the blue like this before.

After about a minute or two had passed with no answer he rang the bell again but this time didn’t wait very long before trying the door, it was unlocked. She probably wouldn’t mind if he invited himself in.

“Frisk?” he called as he closed the front door behind him after entering. “You here?”

No answer. Something most definitely was not right here.

It didn’t take long to ascertain that she wasn’t in the living room or kitchen. Maybe she was napping in her room, she had said she wasn’t feeling well after all.

Her bedroom door was closed. If she was sleeping maybe he shouldn’t disturb her. No, he had to make sure she was okay, he could always apologize if his fears turned out to be ungrounded.

“Frisk you in there?” he asked loudly as he knocked on the door.

“Sans…?” her voice was barely audible and sounded weak.

“You okay?” he asked worriedly.

“Y-yeah… I’m fine just… tired. Don’t… come in… please.”

That hadn’t put his mind at ease in the slightest, in fact it only made him more worried. He needed to see for himself that she was fine before he’d be able to let this go. So preparing himself to apologize and immediately back out if needed he opened the door and stepped in.

Frisk was laying on the bed with one arm hanging over the edge, there was a long slash running halfway down her forearm. Red was slowly oozing out of it and dripping onto the floor. Blood! That red stuff was blood. If humans lost enough blood they died, and there certainly was a lot of it.

“Sans please… don’t make this… any harder… than it has to be.”

Frisk’s weak voice prompted Sans into action once more. Stepping closer he saw her other arm was bleeding too making a large red stain on the bed sheet underneath her.

Who could’ve possibly done this to her? But wait no, she hadn’t called for help, she’d told him to go away and to not make it any harder. She’d done this to herself, the bloodied razor blade on her desk proved it. But why? Was she trying to… kill herself? But again why would she do that?

“What do I do Frisk? How do I stop it?” he asked trying to keep from looking at the blood oozing from her wrist and onto the carpet where there was already a disturbingly large bloodstain.

“Nothing… just let me… die. It’s better… this way I… promise.”

Hospital! He had to get her to a hospital right now.

“Okay um, I’m going to take you to a hospital. They’ll uh be able to fix you, hopefully.”

He stepped closer to her but as he moved to pick her up she feebly pushed his hands away. “I’m sorry… you had to see me… like this. But… it’s better for everyone… if I die,” she said weakly.

Her blood felt warm and sticky on his hands from where she’d touched him to push his hands away. He tried _very_ hard not to think about it or what she’d just said as he ignored her protests and gently scooped her up in his arms making sure her hands didn’t hang to the side.

Then without his usual theatrics he teleported them to just outside a hospital. It was too much for her in her weakened state, she fainted and now hung limp and unconscious in his arms. He couldn’t even tell if see was still breathing anymore. Maybe he shouldn’t have teleported with her like this, but it was too late now.

Inside the hospital there wasn’t that much activity and barely anyone there. It made for an interesting contrast with how panicked he felt.

The receptionist at the desk looked up at him as he approached. “She needs help, please. She’s lost a lot of blood and I don’t know what to do,” he pleaded.

“Do you know how long she’s been bleeding?” the receptionist asked him.

“I… no, but there was an awful lot when I found her. Please you have to do something.”

“Calm down, I’ve already signaled for a nurse to come and take her to a room. Now from the looks of things I’m guessing this is a suicide attempt?”

“I… I don’t know.” Sans didn’t know why she’d ever want to kill herself but that did seem to be the case.

Just then a team of nurses appeared pushing a gurney, they signaled for him to lay Frisk on it. After he did so they immediately wheeled her off. He followed behind them not wanted to take his eyes off her.

Once in a hospital room the nurses and doctors immediately began ministering to the cuts on her wrists and set her up to various machines and other weird things that Sans wasn’t sure were. Even though he could guess that one of the things she was set up to was supposed to replace her missing blood.

He watched every move the nurses and doctors made despite the fact that he was pretty sure his intense scrutiny made at least some of them uncomfortable as they seemed to very purposefully avoid looking in his direction.

As they were cleaning and stitching up Frisk’s wounds he noticed those weren’t the only cuts on her arms. There were small slashes and scars all over both of her forearms. It looked like she’d been cutting herself for a long while now, probably why she covered her wrists all the time.

Why would she do that to herself? It didn’t make sense. He’d always known she wasn’t quite as happy as she pretended to be but this… and trying to kill herself… Why would she do that?

He should’ve tried harder to find out what was making her unhappy all the time. Maybe if he done so it never would’ve come to this.

Eventually the nurses finished up everything they could do and began filing out.

“Is she going to be all right?” Sans asked one of them.

“Yeah we think so, she been stabilized and we started a blood transfusion so she should be fine. It was a close thing though, five-ten minutes more and it probably would’ve been too late.”

If he’d hesitated on checking on her even a few more minutes… no he couldn’t think about that. He’d brought her to the hospital in time that was what was important.

“Do… you know when she’s going to wake up?” he asked.

“No, but I imagine it’ll be sometime late tonight,” the nurse replied. “You going to stay with her?”

“Yeah, I would like to.” Sans wanted to be there for her when she woke up.

“Well okay, there’s a button on the side of the bed. If when she wakes up she tries to hurt herself again press it and a nurse will come to help,” the nurse said before leaving.

Once all the nurses were gone Sans sat on a chair by Frisk’s bedside. He was careful not to accidentally touch any of the things she’d been hooked up to.

“Frisk sweetie, why did you do this?” he whispered quietly to her despite knowing she wouldn’t answer.

 

He’d been sitting there with her for a couple hours napping on and off every few minutes when his phone suddenly started ringing. Pulling it out his saw it was Papyrus.

“Hey bro what’s up?” he said when he answered it trying to sound as if nothing was wrong.

“Hey Sans, where are you? I came home like an hour ago and your still not here.”

“Oh yeah, I’m uh up at the lab. Some stuff happened and they need my sharp wits to stitch things back together,” Sans replied. Papyrus didn’t need to know about what happened with Frisk for his sake as well as hers.

“Well when are you coming back? At this rate you’re going to be late for dinner,” Papyrus complained.

“Oh um, I probably won’t be coming back tonight. I need to be here when a certain thing happens.”

“Is something the matter Sans? You sound worried. Did something really serious happen? No one’s hurt, right?”

“Nah Paps don’t worry about it, no one’s hurt or anything.” Sans never liked lying to his brother but sometimes it couldn’t be helped. “ _Tibia_ honest there’s just a skele- _ton_ of things that could go wrong and something that really needs my attention right now. It’s not even a very _humerus_ situation so I can’t really make light of it.”

“Oh my gosh Sans stop,” Papyrus complained. “Look okay I’ll see you tomorrow then I guess. Just be sure you eat something sometime tonight.”

Before Sans could reply with another bad joke Papyrus hung up.

With a sigh Sans put his phone back in his pocket and settled down once more to wait for Frisk to wake up.


	7. Waking up in a Hospital

As Frisk slowly woke up she had no idea where she was or what had happened. Blinking open her eyes she saw an unfamiliar ceiling above her.

“You’re awake. How ya feeling?”

Looking over she saw Sans sitting by her bedside. With a rush it all came back to her, she’d been starting to drift off and everything was soon going to be over when Sans had suddenly come over and found her. From the looks of things he had brought her to a hospital like he had said he would.

“I’m sorry Sans,” she said as tears blurred her vision. “I’m so sorry you saw…” She couldn’t finish that thought as she tried to choke back a sob.

“I… I’m sorry too Frisk about whatever it is that drove you to this,” Sans said. “But it’s okay now, whatever it is I’m sure we can fix it.”

“But it’s not okay, it’ll never be okay.” As Frisk tried to wipe her tears on her sleeve she realized both her arms were bandaged, probably with stiches underneath. So she used the heel of her hand instead.

“ _Useless_ ,” Chara said suddenly in her mind. “ _You can’t even kill yourself properly_.”

“What’s the matter Frisk? Why… did you do this?” Sans asked giving her a worried look.

“Because it would be better for everyone if I died.” Frisk had been ready to die, everything bad would finally be over and everyone would be safe from Chara forever.

“Don’t say that,” Sans said. “I’m sure there has to be a better solution to whatever the problem is than that.”

“ _There’s not, but he doesn’t know that,_ ” Chara said smugly. “ _Don’t worry though I’ll be sure to make him regret saving you soon_.”

“I know you don’t understand but trust me it would be better for everyone if I was… dead,” Frisk said as tears started to well up in her eyes yet again. Chara’s words had only reminded of why she had done what she did.

“You’re right I don’t understand,” Sans said gently taking her hand, “but trust me nothing would be better for anyone if you were dead. You have a lot of people who care about you and well you can’t do that to us.”

“ _In fact let’s try making him regret saving you right now_ ,” Chara said as she pushed her will against Frisk’s again.

Still weak from blood loss and overwrought with emotion Frisk had trouble holding her off. She was vaguely aware of Sans saying something besides her but couldn’t make out what, he sounded concerned though.

The few seconds it took her to push Chara back, felt like an eternity and ended with what was possibly the worst migraine she’d ever had. But at least she’d won, even though it was just barely.

“Sans?” she asked as she tried to hide her eyes from the now all too bright lights in the ceiling.

“You okay?” he asked worriedly.

“No… head hurts… need pain reliever.”

“I’ll uh go grab a nurse real quick.” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze before leaving.

He came back a short time later with a nurse who insisted on examining her. The only reason she was able to endure the nurse’s attentions was she felt too awful and weak to protest much. But finally at last once the nurse was satisfied she gave Frisk something that would ease the pain and left.

“Sans, can you please turn off the lights?” Frisk asked softly.

“Yeah sure,” he replied.

A few seconds later she heard the sound of the light switch being flipped plunging the room into sweet, sweet darkness. The only light in the room now came from the street light visible from the window, but other than that it was dark. Meaning it was night, she’d been unconscious for a good few hours at least.

“Better?” he whispered as he returned to her bedside.

“Yes, thank you.” Frisk could already feel the effects of what the nurse had given her as it started to cloud her mind and make her feel sleepy.

She moved one hand closer to Sans, hoping he would hold it again, he did. She’d always been fascinated by the way his boney fingers felt and often wished she could have more opportunities to hold his hand.

“Sans, I’m really sorry about all this,” she mumbled giving his hand a gentle squeeze as she drifted off to sleep, missing his reply if he made one.


	8. An Explanation

Frisk slept soundly through the rest of the night. Sans stayed by her side the whole time in case she woke up again. But whatever the nurse had given her worked well at keeping her asleep.

It was one of the very few times in his life he had trouble falling asleep himself. He couldn’t get his mind off how she’d looked with blood pouring from her wrists and on how very insistent she’d been on dying. Anytime he did fall asleep, it wasn’t long before he was woken up again by a nightmare of Frisk bleeding to death in his arms. As a result he didn’t get very much sleep that night.

Why would she ever think her dying would be better for anyone? He couldn’t even begin to think of a logical reason why she’d _ever_ want to kill herself. Something more had to be going on here and he needed to find out what.

Once the sun started to rise though he realized he’d have to inform Alphys that he couldn’t show up at the lab today, there was no way he was going to leave Frisk by herself for most of the day. So he pulled out his phone and sent her a short text saying he wasn’t going to be there.

“ _Any particular reason why? Does it have something to do with whatever you had to check on yesterday?_ ” was the text he got a short time later.

“ _its personal business_ ” he replied hoping she wouldn’t bother him about it later. Luckily that seemed to satisfy her for now as she didn’t reply.

Toriel would expect Frisk to show up at the school too, but obviously that wasn’t going to happen either. When Frisk didn’t show up again today would Toriel want to go check up on her and maybe end up seeing the bloodstains? Frisk no doubt wouldn’t want that, Sans had to find a way to let Toriel know Frisk wouldn’t show up without making her worried.

After admitting Frisk and putting her in a hospital gown, the nurses had put all her stuff in a box next to her including her cell phone. Sans pulled it out but froze when he saw some dried blood on it. Frisk had called him after she’d already cut her wrists. He suddenly felt ill, if she hadn’t called him on what was probably a whim…

Forcing himself to not think about it anymore, he used her phone to text Toriel. Pretending to be Frisk he let her now that she wouldn’t be at the school because she felt ill. He even went out of his way to use capital letters and punctuation like Frisk always did for whatever weird reason. Toriel sent a text saying it was fine and offering to come over after school. Sans texted back that he didn’t want her coming over at all because, Frisk would either be sleeping or at his place. Hopefully that would be enough to deter Toriel from checking on Frisk.

But then again maybe letting Toriel know might be a good idea, she could help watch Frisk to make sure she didn’t try to hurt herself again. But she’d also freak out and probably stress Frisk out even more than she already no doubt would be. So for now Sans figured it might be best to keep this a secret from everyone else if possible.

With all of that out of the way he went back to waiting for Frisk to wake up. And ended up dozing off for the next few hours until a nurse came in to check on Frisk which also woke him up. After examining her, the doctors said she could go home in 24 hours if she didn’t display anymore suicidal behaviours.

After ensuring that Sans still intended to stay with her, they again instructed him to push the button on the side of the bed if Frisk started acting suicidal again. From what he could tell, they would normally put a nurse on suicide watch duty but were running short on staff at the moment so they were willing to let him do it. But even if they had had a nurse there, he would’ve wanted to stay anyway.

“Shouldn’t you be going to the lab?” Frisk asked him once they were alone again.

“Nah I’m taking the day off today,” he replied trying to pretend that they were just hanging out like usual.

“Oh, I’m sorry about making you miss work. You don’t have to stay if you really don’t want to, I don’t think it’s going to be very exciting being up here all day anyway.”

“No uh I’m staying,” Sans said. There was no way he could let Frisk out of sight after what happened yesterday.

“Wait I need to call Mom, she’s probably going to be looking for me when I don’t show up at the school again today,” Frisk said as she starting looking around probably for her phone.

“Don’t worry about it, I already used your phone to text Tori and say you weren’t coming in today.”

“You did? Oh well I guess that’s okay then. You uh didn’t tell her or anyone else about… what happened, did you?” Frisk asked.

“No, I didn’t think you’d want her knowing, and well maybe she doesn’t need to know.” Sans knew that Toriel knowing would only make Frisk feel worse, so for now it was probably better that no one else knew.

“I… thank you, for not telling her or anyone else. And… I’m sorry about putting you through all this trouble and making you worry about me.”

Worried didn’t even come close to describing how he felt about all of this. She’d tried to _kill_ herself and had almost succeeded. Then to top it all off, she didn’t seem to regret trying to kill herself in the least, in fact it was possible she might try again one day. But he couldn’t let her know how freaked out he was. 

“I’ve always been worried about you, even before yesterday. And I’m sorry I wasn’t a good enough friend to know that you’d want to do something like that. I should’ve paid more attention when I realized something was bothering you.” Sans couldn’t help but feel that he should’ve known she’d been thinking about suicide, that he should’ve been able to do and/or say something that would’ve convinced her not to. Or that maybe if he’d been a better friend to her in general that she never would’ve wanted to in the first place.

“No Sans, you’re a great friend, you’ve done more for me than you could ever possibly know. But uh can I ask why you decided to come over yesterday?”

“When you called me you sounded kinda off, and the way you said ‘goodbye’ felt wrong. So I decided to check up on you to make sure you were okay… and I’m really glad I did.” Sans couldn’t even imagine what it would’ve been like if he had waited to check on her until after work. She was one of the two most important people in his life and the thought of losing her was too much to bear.

After that, they talked about less heavy topics for a while as they enjoyed breakfast provided by one of the nurses. Sans wanted to ask her why she’d ever want to commit suicide but he wasn’t sure how to broach the subject. He didn’t want her to say anything like she’d said last night when he’d asked her then.

For the rest of the day they hung around the hospital, not really doing much other than watching the T.V. in Frisk’s room. Their conversation always danced around the elephant in the room, and when Sans would try to steer the conversation in that direction Frisk would change the subject. A nurse or doctor came in to check on her every hour on the hour.

 Not surprisingly Sans got a call from Papyrus that afternoon asking him if he was still at the lab and when he would be coming back.

“Look bro don’t worry about it, I’ll be back tomorrow for sure,” Sans assured him mostly avoiding the question.

“Yeah but Alphys called me earlier and she said you didn’t even show up at the lab today and left early yesterday. So where are you Sans? I’m starting to get really worried about you.”

Of course Alphys had called Papyrus, she’d called Sans four or five times throughout the day but Sans hadn’t answered any of them.

“I’m helping a friend with something okay? It’s not anything you need to worry about and I promise I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“What’s wrong Sans? Did something bad happen? Are you okay?” Papyrus asked worriedly.

“Yeah Paps I’m fine, just calm down okay. I can’t tell you what happened but my friend really needs my help right now. I promise I’ll be back home tomorrow,” Sans said before hanging up, hopefully Papyrus would understand.

“You should really go home Sans, Papyrus is probably worried sick about you,” Frisk said.

“And leave you all alone so you can try to kill yourself again? Yeah, no not gonna happen.”

Frisk visibly flinched at his words. He hadn’t meant to sound so harsh but he was tired and stressed after what happened yesterday and his nearly sleepless night.

“Frisk sweetie, please tell me what’s wrong,” he said. “Why did you try to kill yourself? And don’t say that it’d be better that way, because it’s not. _Nothing_ would be better if you were dead, everything would be worse. So _please_ just tell me why.”

Frisk gave him a sad teary look before replying, “I uh guess I kinda do owe you an explanation after everything you’ve done for me.”

Sans got the impression she was talking about something more than just his saving her life yesterday. But he was just glad she was finally going to talk to him.

“Remember way back when I fell into the Underground?” Frisk began. “Well shortly after I fell, I was possessed by a… ghost I guess you would call it. And I don’t mean a ghost like Blooky, I mean like a ghost of a person who’s died and their soul or whatever hasn’t moved on. Her name is Chara and she wants to use my body hurt everyone I care about.”

“Chara’s the name of the first human who fell into the Underground I think, right?” Sans vaguely remembered hearing something like that a long time ago. It had been long before his time so he wasn’t sure but the older monsters still talked about it sometimes.

“Yeah that’s her, she’s not very nice and if she ever gets control of my body she’ll hurt everyone I care about. I can’t let that happen which is why I… you know. You believe me, right? About her possessing me or whatever.” Frisk was clearly worried that he’d think she was crazy.

“Yeah, I believe you.” Sans could see that she believed what she was saying and he’d never gotten the impression that she was insane so she must be telling the truth. Also it made a sort of sense, worrying that her friends might get hurt would be a reason why she’d try something like death. She was of course forgetting the fact that if she died everyone would _definitely_ be hurt by it. “Okay so she’s like in your head right now? And she can hear what we’re saying?”

“Yeah, but uh she doesn’t like you very much so sometimes, like now she’ll kinda go away when you’re around.”

“Really? Why doesn’t she like me? Are my puns not _humerus_ enough for her?”

“Well uh, there are several reasons she doesn’t like you. But um if she ever gains control of my body she uh… wants to kill you like a lot.”

“Well she’s never gained control of your body before, right?” Sans would’ve noticed if something like that had happened.

“Well uh about that, she kinda has taken control of my body once before. But I uh… Reset what she did.” Frisk went on to explain how when in the Underground she had the ability to Reset to when she first fell into the Underground and when she died time would rewind to a certain point. Again she obviously believed everything she said so Sans did too. He’d already had a vague suspicion about something along those lines anyway from the odd way she’d acted back then, but he’d had absolutely no idea about the full Resets.

“After everyone was safe on the Surface the first time, Chara took control of my body and Reset everything,” Frisk continued after she’d finished explaining Resets. She was starting to sound more than a little upset now. “She uh used my body to kill almost everyone; Mom, Papyrus, Undyne, and practically everyone else we ran into until I was finally able to regain control from her again. And Sans it was _awful_ , I had to watch and feel everything horrible awful thing she did. And I… I can’t ever allow that to happen again. I can’t let her hurt anyone ever again.”

As Frisk started to struggle to hold back tears Sans moved closer to place a comforting hand on her shoulder. He was surprised when she wrapped her arms around him and started sobbing against his chest. He didn’t know what he could say to comfort her so he just held her and let her cry it out.

Holding her close as she sobbed into his jacket, Sans wondered how she’d been able to keep this a secret all these years. It would definitely explain what she’d been so unhappy about, maybe that was even what her nightmares were about. And at least he now knew _why_ she’d tried to kill herself, even if it was obviously not a good solution. But it also meant she might very well want to try again. He could never allow that, he’d have to do everything in his power to make sure she never got another opportunity to try anything like that ever again.

Having been under a lot a stress lately she wept for a good long while. But eventually her sobs started to peter out to be replaced by quiet whimpers which soon faded as she finished crying. She continued to cling to him and he continued to hold her for a few minutes more in a comfortable silence. After a while though she pulled away and started wiping away what was left of her tears.

“You feeling better now?” he asked her.

“Yeah, thank you Sans, I think I really needed that,” she replied giving him a small but genuine smile.

“So uh how were you able to regain control from her?” Sans asked.

“That was actually because of you,” Frisk said giving him another smile. “You… said some things that distracted her and gave me the determination to fight back again. You spoke as if you could sense me as separate from her. And well if it wasn’t for you Chara would’ve won, so thank you.”

From the look on her face and from how carefully she’d measured her words Sans guessed she was leaving something major out about that interaction, something she thought might upset him. But pressing her about it would only distress her, and that was the last thing she needed right now.

After that, he asked a few more questions about what Chara was and how she was able to possess Frisk, unfortunately though Frisk didn’t know much else. But finally knowing what the problem was meant he could work on finding a way to fix it.

The rest of the evening went smooth and was uneventful. Frisk seemed slightly less stressed out which hopefully meant that maybe she wasn’t thinking about trying again. But Sans was determined to keep a very close eye on her anyway, for at least until he knew for sure that she wouldn’t.

That night he again sat at her bedside. He assured her that he was perfectly fine sleeping in the chair even though she wasn’t very happy about it. And he ended up sleeping fairly well that night even though he made sure to wake up every few hours to check on her.

 

The next morning after the doctors examined her again they said she was free to go after handing her a list of recommended psychologists. Sans offered to pay her hospital bill but she downright refused and wouldn’t let him convince her to do otherwise.

He then teleported to the lab parking lot to grab his car and returned to the hospital to pick up intending to bring her back to his place. He wanted to somehow bring up the idea that she sleep over at his place for a while, but wasn’t sure how to bring it up without sounding like he didn’t trust her to not hurt herself. Which he supposed he didn’t really, she clearly believed that she’d been trying to do the right thing. And besides, he wasn’t going to take any chances.

 “Can you take me home real quick? I need to put on some real clothes,” she said as he was trying to think of a way to ask her to spend the night without sounding weird.

“Yeah sure, and then we can go hang out at my place,” he said.

After parking in front of Frisk’s house Sans followed her inside luckily she didn’t seem to mind even when he followed her into her room.

His eyes were immediately drawn to the blood stains on her bed and carpet. They looked huge, and reminded him of just how close he had come to losing Frisk forever. Forcing himself not to think about anymore he looked at Frisk instead, she was also staring at the maroon blotches with a distraught expression on her face.

“Hey Sans, would it be okay if I stayed at your place for a couple days? I uh don’t mind sleeping on the couch,” she said.

“Sure, you can stay as long as you like,” he said. Well that solved that problem, it was too bad there wasn’t a guest room for her sleep in. But at least she’d be where he could watch her.

“Okay, just let me pack a few things,” she said before going to her closet and pulling out an overnight bag and began packing various things in it.

While he waited for her, he looked around the room some more, purposefully avoiding looking at the bloodstained bed and carpet. On her nightstand was an envelope, walking over he saw it had everyone’s names on it. Probably her suicide note.

Curious he pulled it out after making sure Frisk wasn’t paying him any attention. It was full of apologies, ‘thank you’s, and promises that it was better this way. It felt kind of weird to be reading it, it was another reminder that she’d fully committed to killing herself even though she knew it would make everyone sad.

With a sigh he put it back in its envelope, but as he was about to place it back on the night stand he saw another envelope with only his name on it this time.

Picking it up he knew he probably really shouldn’t read it. Reading the other one had been bad enough but this one was addressed only to him. Frisk wouldn’t be happy if he read it, but he wanted to know what it said. Taking just a quick peek wouldn’t hurt though, he didn’t have to read the whole thing.

“Okay Sans I’m uh ready to go.”

Frisk’s voice made him jump as he guilty hid the unopened note in his pocket. Turning around he saw she had changed into something that covered the bandages on her arms and had apparently packed her overnight bag with everything she would need to spend the next few nights at his place. Luckily she hadn’t seen what he’d been looking at and didn’t seem to suspect anything either.


	9. Things Starting to Turn to Almost Normal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've made some MAJOR changes to the last chapter and I recommended rereading it so you'll understand what's being talked about in this chapter.
> 
> Also if I make any mistakes of any sort feel free to point them out and I'll do my best to fix them.

When they got to Sans’ house Frisk suddenly remembered her job at the school, she’s missed two days in a row and she’d at the very least be late today. But she really wasn’t in the mood right now and Sans probably wouldn’t let her go anyway. So she called her mom and told her that she wouldn’t be coming in today either but would tomorrow. Assuming of course that Sans would let her out of his sight for that long.

She wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about how closely Sans was watching her. She felt guilty that she’d made him worry and stress so much about her. She wished she could reassure him somehow but the only way she could do that would be to promise not to try to kill herself again, which she wasn’t sure she could do. Chara was still very much a problem and if Frisk didn’t find some way to stop her then she would eventually gain control of Frisk’s body.

Overall though she still wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about her suicide attempt failing. Part of her was glad to still be alive but another part was upset because she’d finally been about to get rid of the threat posed by Chara. She wasn’t sure yet if she wanted to try again either.

“I’m sorry Sans about all trouble I’ve put you through the past few days,” Frisk said after they’d been sitting on the couch for a little while. “You’re not mad at me for… you know, are you?”

“No, why would I be mad? I’m… upset you did it, but I’m not mad. Just… please don’t do anything like that again. I… I really don’t know what I would’ve done if you’d succeeded,” Sans replied.

Just as Frisk was about to apologize again the front door opened and in walked Papyrus. “Where have you been all this time Sans? I’ve been looking all over for you,” he said.

“Oh hey Paps, you’re home early,” Sans said his serious tone disappearing to be replaced by his usual casual one. “I thought I told you on the phone not to worry about me. I’ve just been helping Frisk with something.”

“Sans how can I not worry about you when you disappear for a whole day and a half and not tell me where you’re at? What were you helping Frisk with that needed to be kept so secret?”

“Oh it’s nothing you need to worry about. She was just having a slight problem. But it’s better now, things have been _stitched_ back together nicely.”

Did Sans really just make a pun about her stitches? Of course he did, he always did stuff like that. But at least Papyrus was unlikely to get the joke.

“What is it? What happened Frisk? You can tell me, I’m the Great Papyrus your bestest and greatest friend. You can tell me anything and I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

“Well uh… just some stuff happened. It’s not really a big deal or anything,” Frisk said as she made doubly sure her sleeves covered the bandages on her arms.

“Yeah Paps don’t worry about it. Just hang out with us and watch some T.V.” Sans said.

“Shouldn’t you two be at work instead of lazing around the house?” Papyrus said.

“Nah, there’s nothing wrong with taking a day off every once in a while. I’m just _bone_ -tired today.”

“Well okay, at least I know you’re all right Sans. You sounded really stressed out on the phone and I was worried that you might have gotten yourself into trouble or someone was seriously injured or something,” Papyrus replied. “Now I guess since it’s already half way through the day I might as well stay too.”

For the rest of the day all three of them hung out on the couch together. Sans seemed a little more relaxed with his brother there. If that was because Papyrus naturally relaxed him or because it meant that there was now another person there to keep an eye on her, Frisk didn’t know. But she felt like it was probably both. Papyrus thankfully didn’t seem to pick up on the fact that anything odd had happened despite how nervous Frisk was that he’d bring up the ‘slight’ problem Sans had helped her with. And she kept messing with her sleeves worried that he would somehow see the bandages underneath and ask about them.

It was almost like she’d never tried to kill herself, life just went on the way it always had. She wondered if her death would’ve damped Papyrus’ enthusiasm any and if so for how long. And then there was Sans, how would he have felt if she had succeeded in killing herself? He’d been so stressed yesterday at the hospital that she was thinking maybe he wouldn’t have taken it quite so well as she’d thought he would when she’d decided to do it.

When darkness set in and it was nearing bedtime Papyrus asked her when she was going to be heading home and if she wanted someone to walk her.

“I’m uh sleeping on the couch here for a couple nights,” she explained to him.

“Ah so it’ll be like a sleepover, that sounds like fun. I don’t think you’ve ever slept over before have you?”

“Yeah I don’t think so.”

The main reason Frisk had never slept over at anyone’s house before despite frequent invites was her nightmares, she didn’t want anyone to worry about her because of them. She was kind of worried about that now but they’d both be in their rooms and she no longer woke crying and screaming from them anyway. And it was better than having to spend the night alone with Chara.

“Well it’ll be fun, we can stay up and do stuff like they do in the movies,” Papyrus said excitedly. “Now what is it that they actually do during those sleepovers in the movies other than stay up and talk?”

“Nah Pap, I think Frisk needs her sleep tonight and so do you,” Sans said saving her from having to stay up and hang out with Papyrus all night. She liked hanging out with Papyrus and under normal circumstances might have been all for staying up and hanging out. But she was still exhausted after everything that had happened the past two days.

“Oh but there has to be some special reason she’s sleeping over tonight right? I mean otherwise why would she want to stay over when her house is only a five minute walk away?”

“I’ve just been feeling a little lonely lately,” Frisk said. “Living by myself isn’t really all I thought it would be and I kinda need a change of pace for a bit. So I hope you don’t mind if I hang out here for the next few days.”

“Well if you’ve been feeling lonely then I, the Great Papyrus, magnanimously grant you permission to stay at our house for as long as desire.”

“Thanks, you guys have always been so nice to me,” Frisk smiled at both of them before heading to the wash room to get ready for bed.


	10. Suicide Note

“Sans is something wrong with Frisk? She seemed kind of sad and tired like all day today,” Papyrus asked once Frisk was out of earshot. “And then there’s that ‘slight problem’ you helped her with. Did something bad happen to her?”

“I can’t really tell you about it, but yeah some… stuff happened,” Sans replied with a sigh. He kind of wished he could pour out all his stress and worry about Frisk and her suicide attempt to his brother but he couldn’t let Papyrus know about it.

“Well is she going to be okay?”

“I… don’t know.”

“Well whatever the problem is I’m sure it’ll turn out fine. I mean how can she stay depressed when she’s friends with the Great Papyrus? So Sans don’t stress about it so much, I’m sure Frisk’ll be fine in no time.”

“I hope so,” Sans said.

Papyrus’ cheery optimism always had a way of making him feel better, even if he didn’t actually know what was going on.

After reading Papyrus his bedtime story Sans went back out into the living room to check on Frisk. She was sitting on the couch as she prepared to sleep on it with the pillow and blanket she’d brought from her house.

“Hey Frisk, how ya feeling?” he asked her.

“I’m fine,” She replied giving him a forced smile.

“Ya know you don’t have to pretend to be fine all the time, right? If you’re feeling upset about something it’s okay to talk about it.” Sans knew there’d been times in the past when he should’ve followed that advice.

“I know, it’s just I don’t want people to worry about me. Especially since my problem can’t really be fixed. And I can’t really tell people about Chara and I don’t know, I just… wish I didn’t have to deal with her being in my head all time. She’s so… mean and says really awful things. I know she does it mostly to upset me, but still I wish she’d just… not.”

“I’ll try to find a way to get rid of Chara for you. I’m not sure how yet but I’ll figure something out,” Sans promised.

Frisk shot him a sad a look that said she still thought the only way to get rid of Chara was for her to die. Sans could never allow that; he couldn’t lose her like that. He’d have to figure something out before she decided she wanted to try again.

“Also Sans I uh want to apologize about the other day. I’m really sorry you had to see my like that. And for putting you through all that trouble with the hospital and missing work and stuff.”

“You don’t have to apologize for it, just don’t ever do anything like that again, okay?”

Frisk hesitated for a bit, biting her lip before getting off the couch and walking over and hugging him. “Thank you for always being so nice to me all the time. You’re a really wonderful person,” she said.

Sans didn’t know how to respond to that as he felt the magic in his bones make his face blush a light blue as he hugged her back. She was really warm and soft in his arms. He could’ve held her a lot longer than the few seconds before she pulled away.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” she said as she returned to the couch.

“Yeah uh goodnight.”

It wasn’t until he’d closed the door to his room that he realized she hadn’t said she wouldn't try to hurt herself again. And that she’d hugged partly to distract him from that fact. He thought about going out there to confront her about it but chose not to for now. He would bring it up with her sometime tomorrow though.

Feeling exhausted and stressed he was about to collapse onto his bed when he suddenly remembered Frisk’s note. The note she’d believed would be her final words to him. He pulled it out of his pocket to look at it.

Maybe he shouldn’t read it, it might say something really private. Or it might be something perfectly harmless, like just another apology similar to the other note, or it might explain about Chara or something.

He didn’t really _need_ to read it, but now that it was out in front of him he was overwhelmingly curious about it. Frisk would never have to know he’d read it. And maybe if he read it he might gain some insight on how to prevent her from hurting herself again.

Having justified it to himself, he pulled the note out of its envelope and began reading Frisk’s smooth flowing handwriting. 

> _Dear Sans:_
> 
> _First off I want to apologize again for having to do this and making everyone sad. I hope you’re not too upset about it and can forgive me one day. But just know if it wasn’t for the best I wouldn’t do it._
> 
> _And I hate to do this but I have a huge favour to ask of you, can you please make sure my mom doesn’t become too terribly depressed about this. I know she’s going to be very upset, I’m her only child now and well I just hope you and everyone else will be there for her._
> 
> _Now as for why I had to do this, I can’t adequately explain all of it to you on paper but I’ll try to explain what I can._

The note went on to explain who and what Chara was and how she wanted to hurt people. It didn’t say anything related to the Resets though.

> _Now with all of that in mind I’m sure you can understand why this is the best choice. Trust me when I say I put a lot of thought into this. It’s the only way I can make sure Chara never hurts anyone._
> 
> _And now Sans, I know I’ve already said this in the other note but I need to say it again. Thank you so much for everything. I’ll always be eternally grateful for what you’ve done for me, even if you don’t remember all of it and in a way some of it never happened. But still thank you again._
> 
> _I wish I could see you one last time to say ‘goodbye’ in person but knowing you, you might suspect my intentions and try to stop me. So I guess this note will have to do._
> 
> _But now I have to tell you something important, the main reason why I wanted to leave you a note separate from the other one. It’s also one of the many, many reasons why I can never let Chara take over my body because then you would think it was me doing all those horrible things she wants to do. And if Chara ever hurt you, as she so desperately wants to do, I don’t think I could take it._
> 
> _I love you Sans._
> 
> _I’ve loved you for a for a while but didn’t fully realize it until now, when it’s too late. But even if I had realized earlier I probably wouldn’t have been able to say anything to you. And it wouldn’t have changed my decision to do this._
> 
> _I hope that maybe you might love me too. Even if it is as just a friend that’s okay, I’ll be dead anyway so I won’t have to worry about our friendship being awkward._
> 
> _I hope you can forgive me for telling you that after killing myself like this but I just wanted to let you know. And also I hope you can forgive me for having to do this in general. Please try not to grieve for me for too long._
> 
> _So once more thank you and goodbye._
> 
> _Love Frisk_

Sans hadn’t expected the note to contain anything like that. And he’d had to read that line multiple times before its meaning truly sunk in. Frisk… loved him. But despite that, she’d tried to kill herself anyway.

Maybe he should talk to her about it. But no, she wouldn’t be happy to learn he’d read her note.

But then what should he do about it? He couldn’t just pretend he didn’t know. Well actually, he could and probably would for now, until he thought of some other way to talk to her about it anyway.

After some thought he placed the note in the one place where it wouldn’t get lost in the clutter of his room: the shelf in the closest that was too high up for him to reach without the use of magic or a chair. Then he turned out the light and lay in his bed. Where for perhaps the first time in his life and despite feeling mentally and emotionally exhausted he didn’t immediately fall asleep. His mind was still too full of Frisk, her attempted suicide and her confession of love.

But still it wasn’t very long before he was fast asleep, falling into a dream.


	11. Nightmares

Sans dreamt he was in Frisk’s house looking for her. He couldn’t remember why he was looking for her but knew it was important that he find her as soon as possible. But despite his need for haste, he seemed to only be able to move slowly, as if he was trudging through thick liquid of some sort.

He did eventually make it to her bedroom door though. Opening it seemed to take twice as long as it should have. Inside the room was empty except for Frisk lying in the center with red liquid pooling around her, pouring from the cuts on her forearms.

Realizing this was blood and that Frisk was dying Sans rushed to her side. This was why he’d been looking for her so frantically. He’d been trying to stop her from doing this. But he was too late.

“How do I stop it Frisk? What do I do?” he asked as her eyes blinked open to look weakly up at him.

“Please… don’t make this harder… than it has to be Sans,” she said softly.

Fighting panic Sans scooped her up in his arms and tried to teleport them to a hospital but nothing happened. Why couldn’t he teleport? Frisk needed help _now_ , it’d be too late if he had to carry her the normal way.

“I’m sorry… but it’s better this way… I promise,” Frisk said.

“No, no Frisk please don’t. I’ll take you to a hospital they’ll be able to fix you,” Sans said trying to teleport them again. Still nothing.

“It’s okay… it’s better this way… but Sans… before I go I want to tell you that… I love you.” Frisk smiled weakly up at him for a second or two before going limp and lifeless in his arms.

“Frisk no, please don’t die,” he begged knowing it was already too late. “Please wake up, say something anything. Just don’t leave me like this.”

He pulled her now lifeless body close against his ribcage barely noticing how her blood was soaking into his once blue jacket. “Please Frisk sweetie, I love you too. So you can’t do this to me. Don’t die, please wake up.”

Sans woke from the dream with a jolt. “Frisk I…” he started to say before realizing it had been just a dream. Frisk was fine, she was in the living room sleeping.

He forced himself to sit and compose himself before going out to check on her. After that dream he needed to see that she was okay before he could calm down all the way.

He’d always been prone to having nightmares. His whole life anytime something would stress him out enough he’d have awful nightmares about it. He’d kind of forgotten about it though, ever since he’d gotten onto the Surface there’d been nothing stressful enough for him to have one, not until now anyway.

After he was sure it was no longer obvious that he’d been freaking out from his nightmare he pulled his jacket back on and went out into the living room to check on Frisk.

As it turned out he wasn’t the only one having a nightmare that night. Frisk was curled up on the couch breathing heavy making an occasional whimper as if from pain. He’d known she’d been lying when she’d said she’d stopped having nightmares. Waking her up from it was probably a good idea.

“Wake up Frisk,” he said gently shaking her shoulder. But she didn’t stir as she made another pained whimper.

Now that he thought about it, he’d never woken her up from one of her nightmares before. He just knew about them from what she and Toriel had said about them.

“C’mon sweetie, you need to wake up,” he said as he shook her shoulder again.

This time it worked as she blinked open her eyes and looked up at him. She flinched, pulling away from him immediately as if she thought he was going to hurt her.

“You okay?” he asked worriedly. He wasn’t sure if her response to being woken up was normal or if it had something to with him.

“I’m… awake,” she said after looking up at him with a confused expression for a few seconds. “I’m not dreaming anymore. You uh woke me up at an… interesting point in the dream.”

“You okay?” he repeated.

“Yeah I’m fine, just a nightmare, nothing special,” she said sitting up. “Why are you up this early?”

“To check on you and make sure that you’re all right. What was your uh nightmare about? If you don’t mind talking about it.”

“Well I uh have nightmares about when Chara had control of my body and what she did with it. They’re not very pleasant.” Frisk sighed. “You uh going to going to go back to bed or do you want to stay up and have coffee with me?”

“Coffee sounds good.” Sans was still too shaken up by his own nightmare to get anymore sleep that night anyway.


	12. Back to Work

As Frisk set up the coffee pot, she tried to ignore how weird it had been being woken up by Sans. In the dream she’d been at the part where Sans had been killing Chara over and over. When he’d woken her up her mind had been still half asleep, she’d thought she was still in the dream and that Sans was going to hurt her. Before this she’d never considered anything like that happening. She didn’t like it and hoped it wouldn’t happen again.

After pouring herself and Sans some coffee they sat at the kitchen table to hang out and chat. Their conversation was sparse and a bit awkward as they both purposefully avoided talking about anything heavy. Sans seemed tense, as if there was something he wanted to talk to her about but didn’t know how. She figured it had to be something to do with her suicide attempt. She wished she could say something to make him feel better but didn’t know what.

She wondered if things would ever return to normal between them. She hoped so, she didn’t like seeing Sans so stressed about her. It made her feel guilty.

After finishing her coffee Frisk decided to take a shower and change the bandages on her stitches. She dreaded to see what the cuts on her wrists would look like but knew she needed to clean and change the bandages. So with a sigh she informed Sans of what she was going to go do, getting a tired nod in response.

As she grabbed her things she reflected on how much nicer it was to not be alone after waking up from her nightmare. Ever since she’d moved out of Toriel’s house she hadn’t realized just how lonely and awful her mornings had become.

“ _Heya Frisky,_ ” Chara chimed in as Frisk closed the bathroom door. “ _I really wish you wouldn’t stay here. I’m so sick and tired of Sans, and as much as I don’t want to take control of your body when he’s around I might have to at this rate. I’d really prefer to be able to surprise him now that you’ve gone and told him about me. But whatever it doesn’t change the fact that I’m still going to kill him one day, even though I’m disappointed that he won’t think it’s you._ ”

_No, I won’t let you hurt him or anyone else_ , Frisk thought back at her.

“ _Oh but you can’t stop me. The only hope you ever had of stopping me was killing yourself, which you failed to do. And I don’t think you have the guts to try again. Especially now that your precious Sans is probably going to be keeping a close eye on you to make sure of it. Trust me when I say he’s going to regret saving you, and he won’t be able to fight me at all because of you, meaning…_ ”

Frisk cut her off with a slight twist to the bandages on one of her arms causing enough pain to shut her up for now. It hurt worse than she’d expected, but at least she didn’t have to listen to Chara anymore.

With that taken care of Frisk went back to her business of getting ready to shower and change her bandages. She winced as she peeled them off her arms, the cuts looked horrible with their stitches keeping them closed. She had to force herself not to look away as the sight of them filled her with horror and shame. Why had she ever thought slitting her wrists was a good idea?

When the stitches came off and the cuts healed all the way she’d no doubt be left with awful scars. But because of her cutting habit she’d been doomed to only be able to wear long sleeves shirts for the rest of her life anyway. But still if anyone ever saw them they’d know immediately what she’d tried to do.

Taking a shower was awkward as she tried to keep her stitches from being hit directly by the shower’s spray. Mostly because it hurt but also because she thought it might damage them. She succeeded for the most part but cleaning them hurt anyway.

Once done she had to gently pat dry her arms, it hurt but she soldiered on regardless. When she was sure they were dry she put fresh bandages on them and could finally leave them alone.

After getting dressed and making sure once more that her sleeves covered the bandages she returned to the kitchen to pour herself another cup of coffee. Sans had fallen asleep sitting at the kitchen table with his head resting on his hand. She thought about waking him to ask him if he also wanted another cup but decided to let him sleep. It was very unusual for him to be up this early and he was probably tired.

The sun was almost completely up by now and she’d have to make breakfast soon. She wondered when Papyrus would be waking up. She knew he was morning person so he should be getting up soon.

As if the thought had summoned him, Papyrus chose that moment to walk into the kitchen. “Oh good morning Frisk,” he greeted her cheerily.

“Good morning to you too Papyrus,” she said him with a smile. Despite the fact that her arms hurt from cleaning them she was in a pretty good mood for once. She could get used to hanging out with Sans and Papyrus in the mornings.

“Why is Sans out of bed this early in the morning?” he said shooting Sans, who was still sleeping, a confused looked.

“I don’t know,” Frisk said, she didn’t want Papyrus knowing that Sans was worried enough about her to have woken up at stupid o’ clock in the morning to check on her.

She and Papyrus enjoyed a pleasant conversation as they made breakfast together. Or more like Frisk listened while Papyrus excitedly chatted to her about this and that. Sans stayed asleep at the table the whole time despite how loud Papyrus naturally talked. She sometimes envied his ability to sleep through anything. Once breakfast was fully prepared though it was time to wake him up.

“Hey Sans, wake up,” she said in sing-songy voice as she gave him a slight nudge.

He groaned in response but his eye sockets opened anyways. “Hey Frisk, hey Paps,” he mumbled.

“Good morning to you Sans,” Papyrus said cheerily. “Now you want to tell my why you’re out of bed and sleeping at the kitchen table?”

“Oh you know, I’m t _able_ to fall asleep anywhere.”

Papyrus sighed in annoyance at Sans’ pun but didn’t say anything.

After they’d finished eating breakfast together Frisk remembered that she needed to head to work today. But as she was about to leave to go walk to her car Sans stopped her.

“You sure you’re ready to head back to work?” he asked her.

“Yeah, I think I’ll be okay.”

“Okay well uh, let me drive you then,” he said.

“I can just walk down and get my car, it’s not a big deal.”

“No I insist, let me drive you, I’ll even pick you up at the end of the day. I mean like since you’re staying here anyway might as well carpool right?” Sans said despite the fact that the school wasn’t on the way to the lab at all.

“Won’t you be late though?”

“Only by a few minutes, it’s not a big deal.”

“I… okay,” Frisk said with a resigned sigh.

Sans didn’t trust her. But she supposed she didn’t really deserve his trust after what she’d tried to do. Not that she would’ve killed herself with the car, too much of a risk of hurting other people. But she could use it to drive down to a high bridge or something and kill herself that way.

During the car ride down to the school she thought about confronting him about his not trusting her to not attempt suicide again. But she knew it wouldn’t do anything. She still might try again one day and Sans probably knew that.

“I’ll uh pick you up later today,” Sans said as he pulled up in front of the school.

“Okay, I’ll see you later then,” she replied as she climbed out of the car.

She watched him drive away for a little bit before turning around and entering the school where she ran into her mother probably waiting for her to arrive.

“Hey Mom, how’s it going?” she greeted her.

“Good, you feeling better today?” Toriel asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine now. I was just really sick and stuff, but I’m good now.” A lie, how could she ever be fine with Chara in her head.

“So I noticed Sans dropped you off today.”

“Yeah I stayed over at his house last night so he offered to drive me to work this morning.”

“Oh okay, that’s… fine. You’re an adult now so you can do what you want,” Toriel said as if something Frisk had said surprised her. Frisk was about to ask her why when the bell rang, meaning it was time they headed to their jobs.

After that, the day was almost normal. Her wrists hurt all the time and she desperately wanted to scratch them but couldn’t. And she constantly had to make sure her sleeves covered them, she couldn’t have any of the students asking uncomfortable questions.

Every time Chara made so much as a peep Frisk immediately silenced her with a slight twist of one her bandages. She knew she probably really shouldn’t do that and it hurt worse than cutting but it was also faster and more convenient. She just wasn’t in the mood for Chara’s mouth after everything that had happened.

Also, every couple of hours or so she’d receive a text from Sans asking her how she was doing. It made her feel guilty that she’d made him so worried about her so she always made sure to reply as soon as she could.

“Is that Sans texting you?” Toriel asked her after she’d answered one during lunch break.

“Yeah, he’s uh bored so he’s texting me to say ‘hi’,” Frisk lied. She couldn’t let her mom know Sans was worried about her, it would just make her worried too.

“So are you going to move in with him now?”

“What? No, why would I? I’m just spending a few nights on his couch that’s all.”

She’d have to go back home eventually but she didn’t want to clean up the blood stains on the bed and carpet just yet. Not to mention how lonely her house was and how wonderful it had been to share breakfast with Sans and Papyrus that morning.

“Oh you slept on the couch?” Toriel said sounding surprised about that for some reason.

“Of course, where else would I have slept? They don’t have a guest room.”

“Oh I just thought that you and Sans… you know what never mind pretend I didn’t say anything.”

“You thought I slept with Sans last night?!” Frisk felt herself blush hotly at the thought.

“Well I know how close you two are. So when you said you’d spent the night at his house I thought you’d finally taken your relationship to the next level. At first I was worried that you might be taking it a bit too fast but you’re an adult now so it not my place to dictate your love life. But I guess I don’t really have to worry about that quite yet, do I?” Toriel said.

“No me and Sans are just friends. There was a time when it was maybe possible that we might’ve become more than that but not anymore.”

How could Sans ever love her the way she loved him when he knew her deepest darkest secret? Or after he’d seen her almost succeed in killing herself and she’d asked him to just let her die? When he no longer trusted her? No, if there was ever any chance that Sans loved her she’d ruined it when she’d tried to kill herself.

“Oh did something happen between you two?” Toriel asked worriedly.

“Yeah kinda, I’d really rather not talk about it though,” Frisk said with a sigh as she got up from the table. It was almost time to get back to work.


	13. Promise

Once school was out and Frisk was done with all the after school stuff she needed to do she walked out to see Sans’ car already waiting for her. Walking over she saw he was fast asleep leaning back with his feet up on the steering wheel. Not that that necessarily meant he’d been waiting long since he could fall asleep instantly almost anywhere. It was a talent she often wished she had.

Frisk tapped on the driver side window causing him to jerk awake. She then walked around to the passenger side door and climbed in after he’d unlocked it.

“Hey Frisk, how was your day today?” he asked as he started the car.

“It was fine.” Frisk shrugged. “How was your day?”

“Also fine, Alphys was a bit upset with me because I didn’t explain why I wasn’t there yesterday,” Sans replied. “But uh I kinda want to talk to you about something.”

“Um sure go ahead.” Frisk was pretty sure whatever he wanted to talk about was something serious from the way he’d said it.

Sans thought for a few seconds before continuing, “It’s about what happened the other day. I guess I kinda understand why you tried to… do that, but I just wanna know if you’re still thinking about… trying again.”

Frisk took a breath to respond but immediately let it out again. Was she considering trying again? She knew Sans wanted her to say ‘no’ but that be lie, wouldn’t it? There was no other way to deal with Chara so she kind of had to, right? But that would make Sans, her mom, and everyone else sad. Still though, she’d known that when she’d tried the first time and had accepted it.

“Frisk please…” Sans said after a few seconds of tense silence.

“I don’t know,” She said at last as they pulled up into the driveway of his house. Then before he could respond, she climbed out of the car and went inside. As they sat on the couch next to each other, she wished he would just drop the topic but knew he wouldn’t.

“There’s something else I need to tell you about Chara,” she said “You know those headaches and migraines I’ve been getting all these years, they’re uh caused by her. Every time she tries to take control of my body and I push her away I get one. And as you know, they’ve been getting worse, especially lately. And that’s because Chara’s getting closer to winning. She’s getting closer to taking control of my body and I can’t hold her off forever.”

Sans thought for a few seconds before replying, “There has to be a way to stop her though, right?”

“The only way to stop her is if I die, which is why I should…”

“No,” he interrupted her before she could say that she should try again.

“But Sans I…”

“I said ‘no’. I’m not gonna let you try anything like that ever again. And if I have to tell Toriel and everyone else to keep an eye on you and make sure you don’t try to hurt yourself, I will.”

Sans didn’t make idle threats, if he said he would tell them he would. Frisk couldn’t bear the thought of having everyone know. She didn’t think she could handle their worry for her or what they might think of her because of it.

“Then Sans when she does take control of my body, because at some point she will, can you stop her for me? Before she hurts anyone.” Frisk knew she was asking for a lot, but since he was the only one who knew, he was also the only one who could stop her.

“If… that does happen I’ll lock her up someplace until I can figure out how to fix it,” Sans replied. “But I’ll uh try to figure something out before it comes to that.”

“Really? But what if it’s not possible? I mean what could possibly stop her?” Frisk had tried to come up with tons of ways to get rid of Chara but could never think of something that even sounded plausible. But Sans was _way_ smarter than her, he might be able to think of something she couldn’t.

“I don’t know yet, I’ll have to think about it,” he said. “So can you please promise me you won’t try to kill yourself in the meantime?”

Could Frisk really promise him that? Chances of him finding a way to get rid of Chara were low and if Chara ever gained control of her body, everyone she cared about might get hurt. She could never allow that to happen, and if she had to die to prevent it, she would. And she’d already promised Sans in that other timeline that she’d never let it happen again.

“Please Frisk don’t,” Sans said when she hesitated to answer. “I know you’re thinking Chara might hurt everyone you care about, but if you died that would definitely hurt them. So can you _please_ trust me to find a better way?”

Why did Sans have to make her feel like this? So conflicted and sad but also kind of glad because he cared about her and because a growing part of her really didn’t want to die. A part of her she was afraid was being selfish. But Sans was going to try to find a better way so maybe she could afford to be a little selfish, if for no other reason than so she’d get to spend more time with him.

“I… okay Sans, I trust you. I promise I won’t try to kill myself again.” There she’d made the promise, there was no going back now. There was no way she could ever break a promise, especially one she’d made to him. She’d just have to trust Sans to find a way to get rid of Chara.

“Thank you,” Sans said with a relieved sigh. “In truth I don’t know what I would’ve done if you’d actually succeeded. And knowing you were still thinking about it… and might even try again someday…”

“I’m sorry Sans,” Frisk said as she hugged him, they’ve really been doing a lot of that lately. But she liked hugging him despite how boney he was under his shirt and jacket he was still warm and comforting. And she felt safe when he wrapped his arms around her. “I’m sorry about making you worry about me, and I really won’t try again, I promise. I…” She wanted to tell him she loved him but she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it.

“But Sans can you promise me that if Chara takes over my body you won’t let her hurt anyone no matter what?” she said instead as she pulled away.

“Of course…”

“Even if it means you have to hurt or kill her.”

“You know I could never do that. I’d lock her up like I said, but I could never hurt her because then I’d be hurting you too.”

Frisk couldn’t help but find that slightly humorous. After everything that had happened in that other timeline when Chara had possessed her, the hundreds of times Sans had killed her and Chara, it was really weird to hear him say he’d never do that. Of course, she’d known he never would, Sans knew her and was her friend in this timeline and he would know it was Chara doing all that, not her. But still hearing him say it felt a bit odd to her.

“All right I guess,” Frisk couldn’t really expect him to kill her even if it was to stop Chara. “But you should prepare a room or place somewhere to lock her up just in case. I don’t really know when it’s going to happen but it could be soon.”

“I’ll try to find a way to fix it before it comes to that,” he said, but knowing him he’d probably be prepared for the worst anyway.

“Thank you Sans,” Frisk said smiling at him. For the first time in a long a time, she was actually starting to feel… hopeful. There were no concrete plans yet on how to get rid of Chara but Sans had promised he’d fix it. And if Sans promised he’d find a way to fix it then he’d find a way to fix it.


	14. Trying to Find a Way to Fix it

“So Sans,” Alphys said to him when he walked into the lab the next day after dropping Frisk off at the school. “I was talking to Papyrus the other day, he uh asked me about something going wrong at the lab. He said that you uh didn’t go home the other night and were gone all day the next. He said that you said that you were at the uh lab. I know you weren’t, so uh where were you?”

“I was taking care of some personal business,” Sans said hoping she would drop it, but alas his hopes were futile.

“Were you uh perhaps with… Frisk?”

“Why would you assume I was with Frisk?”

“Well uh I saw how often you texted her yesterday. And I heard she’s been sleeping at your house the past few nights which can only really mean one thing.”

Sans felt his face blush with magic at what Alphys obviously assumed he and Frisk had done together. He tried to hide it by looking away but caught the gleam in Alphys’ eyes as she thought her suspicions had been confirmed.

“So when are you guys going to tell everyone that you’re a thing finally?” she asked excitedly.

“We’re not a thing, and nothing you think happened between us actually happened. It’s true I was with her that day but not for any of the reasons you’re thinking of. I was helping her with a problem she was having.”

“Really, what uh sort of problem?” Alphys asked being nosy as always.

“You don’t really need to know. So stop trying to _monitor_ Frisk’s personal life,” Sans said. “Now quit _dragon_ your feet and _komodo_ with me and let’s get some work done.”

“But wait, why is she sleeping at your house then if you guys aren’t a thing a yet?”

“Because she’s feeling lonely,” Sans said with a sigh wishing Alphys would just drop it.

“Oh well, I mean you uh like her like that though, right? Why don’t you uh… tell her and maybe she won’t be so lonely,” Alphys said with a nervous smile.

Almost losing Frisk had made him realize how much he cared about her. But he couldn’t tell her because… wait why couldn’t he tell her? He knew from her note that she… loved him, so he didn’t have to fear rejection. But still the thought of bringing it up made him nervous, he’d never been very good at conveying his feelings. And he still had to find a way to protect her from Chara before it was too late.

“We have work to do,” he said before striding past her ignoring her disappointed look.

As he worked he tried to think of how he was going to figure out a way to get rid of Chara. He supposed the first step would have to be determining what she was and how she was possessing Frisk.

“Hey Alphys, how much do you know about human ghosts and stuff?” Sans asked.

“Um you mean like when a human dies and their uh soul sticks around and uh haunts a place or something? I uh only really know that it only happens when the uh human has a very strong negative emotion when they’re dying. Or at least that’s what I read in a book once a long time ago, I uh don’t really know if it’s true though. And um finding out might have uh ethical problems.”

“Did that book say anything about those ghosts possessing people or things?”

“Well uh I don’t really remember. It was a long time ago before the um Barrier broke. I was trying to learn more about human souls and stuff to try to uh figure out how the Barrier worked and stuff,” Alphys said. “But uh can I ask why you’re asking?”

“Oh no real reason, just saw a thing on T.V. the other day claiming to be fact about that sorta stuff. I was just wondering if it was true.”

“Oh um I think I might still have the book somewhere. If you’re still interested I could maybe uh try to find it and uh lend it to you.”

“That would be great, and if you have any other books about that kind of stuff maybe I could borrow them too.”

“Um all right, I’ll uh look through some of my old books and stuff later today then.”

         

Later that day when he went to go pick up Frisk from her job at the school he told her about his plans to figure out just what Chara was.

“Oh I guess that’s probably a good starting point, huh?” she said. “But I can’t really believe I never thought to do anything like that.”

“Don’t worry about it, we’ll fix it soon, I promise,” Sans said. He was going to fix it and then everything would be all right. Frisk would finally be able to be happy.

“Thank you Sans for going so far out of your way to try to fix this for me. It really means a lot, and I don’t really know what I would do without you.”

Frisk looked like she intended to say more but she then suddenly tensed up and pressed her hand to her head in way Sans knew meant she was having a migraine. Knowing the cause of those migraines made the moment all the more tense, it would be just his luck for Chara to take control of Frisk’s body now of all times. But luckily that didn’t seem to be the case this time as Frisk relaxed a little and was definitely still herself.

“You okay?” he asked her.

“Not really,” she moaned pressing her hand to her head.

Luckily they arrived back at his place a short time later. Holding her hand, he led her inside since the sunlight reflecting of the freshly fallen snow was too bright for her eyes to handle.

Then after grabbing her a glass of water so she could take her pain meds he brought her to his room. It was the darkest room in the house due to the thick curtains covering the window so it was really the only place she could take a nap.

“Hmm, thank you,” Frisk mumbled as she lay down on his bed.

“You need anything else?” he whispered to her.

“No I’m good now.”

He then quietly left the room being sure the door didn’t make sound as he closed it. He then sat on the couch to wait for Papyrus to come home.

He wondered how close Chara had gotten to taking over Frisk’s body this time. Knowing she caused Frisk so much pain made Sans hate her even more than he already did. Chara was also the reason Frisk had tried to kill herself. He couldn’t wait until he finally found a way to get rid of her for good.

Sans had only been fuming about Chara for a few minutes before Papyrus came home. Instantly he allowed his rage to drain away.

“Where’s Frisk?” Papyrus asked after they’d exchanged greetings.

“Napping in my room,” he replied.

“Your room? Why your room? It’s a mess. You at least cleaned it up some first right?”

“No, didn’t really have time. She had one her migraines and needed a dark place to lay down. Your room has that big giant window that lets in a lot of light so my room was the only option.”

“Well, all right then,” Papyrus said. “But if she’s going to be napping in your room when she gets her headaches you should clean it when you get the chance. You can’t have her thinking you’re a slob.”

“Sure thing bro.” Sans had no intention of cleaning it. Frisk already knew he was a slob so it didn’t matter.


	15. Knife

About a week later, it was finally time for Frisk to get her stitches removed. Luckily, it was on a Saturday so she didn’t have to worry about missing work. Sans offered to drive her but she declined, and surprisingly he let her go. Maybe he was starting to trust her again after all.

For the whole week she’d slept on their couch, not wanting to try to clean the bloodstains in her room yet, not wanting to even look at them. She also dreaded going back and being lonely again, especially in the mornings after her nightmares.

She’d still have to go back eventually, but maybe she could spend just a few more days at their place. At least Sans and Papyrus didn’t mind her being there all the time. So she didn’t have to worry about overstaying her welcome.

After getting her stitches removed, she inspected her wrists. The wounds weren’t completely healed yet but were close enough that she could guess how ugly the scars were going to be. She’d never be able let anyone see her wrists without them knowing she’d tried to kill herself. But she could never show anyone her wrists anyway because of all the other scars she’d gained from cutting herself. But still she would be reminded of it every time she looked at them.

When she arrived back at Sans’ place after parking her car in front of her house and walking, he was napping on the couch. Papyrus was still at work, so she was kind of alone. But she knew if she needed him she could always wake Sans up, which was a comfort. It was what made staying at their house so nice, she was never really alone.

“ _You know I really hate you_ ,” Chara said breaking the silence after a little while. “ _But as much as I hate you I hate Sans more. I think I’ve decided that when I take control of your body I’m going to kill Papyrus first so that I can make him sad. What do you think he’ll do? He won’t be able to get revenge for his brother without hurting you. But if he doesn’t kill me I’ll eventually be able to kill him._ ”

_Shut up._ Frisk was not in the mood for this today. Not after once more being reminded of her failed suicide attempt. _I’m not going to let you hurt anyone. Sans is working on a way to get rid of you._

“ _You really think he’ll be able to find a way to get rid of me? It’s not possible to get rid of me unless he kills you. Which he won’t do, so I get a free pass to kill him._ ”

Frisk reached for her pocket where she normally kept her knife, it wasn’t there. For the past week anytime Chara’s taunts became too much she had just messed with her stitches. But they were gone now so she had to go back to the old fashioned way of dealing with the demon in her head.

Frisk sighed as she stood up and made her way to the kitchen. After a small amount of searching she found a knife in one of the drawers, she’d have to clean it when she was down using it but it didn’t matter. During all this Chara continued to taunt her, saying hurtful things with the sole intent of upsetting her, it worked too.

As she pulled back her sleeve Sans suddenly appeared in front of her. “Hey Frisk, what’s happening here?” he said despite the fact that it was obvious what was happening here.

“I uh…” Frisk stammered. How had he known? She thought he’d been sleeping.

“Now I know I may not be the _sharpest_ tool in the shed when it comes to human health but I’m pretty sure cutting yourself is bad,” he said looking pointedly at the knife in her hand.

“Well I do it because it makes Chara shut up, for a little while at least.”

“I see… so that’s why you have all those cuts on your arms huh? I’ve been wondering about that.”

Of course Sans knew about her cutting problem, he’d brought her to the hospital after all. He’d probably seen her scars before the doctors bandaged her arms. But she had to admit that she was glad he’d never asked her about it.

“ _We have a knife, let’s kill him_ ,” Chara growled as she suddenly pushed her will against Frisk’s.

Chara hadn’t tried anything like this once the past week. Frisk had been wondering why but now she knew, it was because she’d been gathering her strength. She pushed _hard_ against Frisk’s will, trying to make her raise the knife against Sans. It took all of Frisk’s determination to hold her back.

Frisk was vaguely aware of Sans asking if she was all right but she couldn’t respond with anything other than a weak head shake. She was not all right, Chara was pushing harder and more determinedly than she had in a long time.

“ _You can’t win against me bitch_ ,” Chara said as she pushed even harder.

Frisk’s eyes filled with tears as she felt herself starting to slip. She sunk to her knees still clutching the knife, wishing she could at least let go of it.

“Sans, I’m losing,” she managed to say before Chara gave one last hard push and everything came tumbling down.

Frisk had lost control to Chara once before which only made this second time feel even worse. She’d fought so hard for so long for this not to happen again. But she’d failed. She’d known it had to happen eventually, but she’d hoped and prayed that Sans would be able to help her before it was too late. But he’d failed too.

“Fucking finally,” Chara said using Frisk’s mouth as she stood up.

“Chara I presume,” Sans said taking a step back. “I’ve got a real _bone_ to pick with you about what you’ve been doing to Frisk.”

“Heya Sansy, long time no see.” Chara grinned. “Even though I guess that’s not really true. I’ve seen you plenty of times through Frisk’s eyes. _Way_ too much if you ask me, and I’m sick of it.”

Chara didn’t wait for him to respond before lunging at him with the knife still clutched in Frisk’s hand. Not surprisingly he easily dodged it.

_Stop Chara, please stop._ Frisk begged but was ignored as Chara tried to slash at Sans again.

“I’m sorry Frisk, I uh couldn’t fix it in time,” Sans said.

“Don’t apologize to her, you’ll only make her want to cry like a little fucking crybaby. She could’ve fixed it anytime she wanted expect she promised you she wouldn’t. And now it’s too late.”

“No, I’ll still fix it, but it’s just going to be a bit harder than I would like,” Sans said throwing a weak attack at Chara that she easily dodged.

“That’s what you’re going to attack me with?” Chara laughed derisively. “You’re not even going to use your laser things on me?”

“You know about the Gaster Blasters?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot Frisk didn’t tell you about our meeting in Judgement Hall.”

_Please don’t tell him about that_. Frisk begged but was once more ignored.

“In that other timeline, back before Frisk Reset, you killed me and in way Frisk too, _hundreds_ of times. In fact, I counted mostly because you asked me to, you killed us a total of 762 times.”

“I did? But… I guess I would if I didn’t know about you,” Sans said.

“She has nightmares about it almost every night, of you killing her over and over and over again. How she can even stand to look at you after all that I’ll never know. But you haven’t even heard the best part yet, during my 763rd attempt you said some bullshit about me maybe being a good person deep inside and how you were willing to ‘spare’ us. I mistakenly thought that meant you were giving up, that I had finally won. As I’m sure you can imagine after being killed by you 762 times in a row I was quite ecstatic. Unfortunately, your words gave Frisk her determination back, and she managed to regain control from me. And surprise, surprise she accepted your ‘mercy’ and spared you. And you wanna know what happened after that?”

“She uh Reset?” Sans asked nervously.

_Please don’t tell him, please_.

“You killed her. You murdered her in cold blood and laughed in her face about it as she slowly, _painfully_ died in front you. You even told her to ‘get dunked on’.”

Sans visibly flinched at her words. The look of shock and horror on his face broke Frisk’s heart.

“I… I’m sorry Frisk,” he said.

Frisk had never wanted him to know about that, it wasn’t his fault that he hadn’t known that Chara and Frisk were two different people. But even if he had known, that was before they were friends. And after everyone Chara had killed using her body, his actions had been perfectly justified.

But the fact that Chara had told him solely to upset him made Frisk mad. She pushed against Chara’s will, but she might as well have been trying to push over a brick wall for all the progress she made.

“In her last dying breath before she Reset she thanked you of all things. She literally thanked you for killing her a bunch of times. Isn’t that fucked up and kind of hilarious?” Chara said with an evil grin.

“I’ll fix this Frisk, I promise,” Sans said throwing another halfhearted attack, which again took almost no effort on Chara’s part to avoid.

“And how are you gonna that? You think I’m just going to sit back and let you lock me up someplace while you try to figure shit out? Newsflash moron, you can’t get rid of me without killing you precious crybaby Frisk too,” Chara replied before preparing to lunge at him with the knife again.

But they both froze as they heard the sound of a car backing up into the driveway. There was only one person that could be: Papyrus.


	16. A/N Apologies

I’m super sorry for how long it’s taken me to update this story. Basically, what happened was that I wrote the next chapter but it wasn’t very good, it felt forced and redundant. So, I decided to rewrite it, make it better, but it still wasn’t very good and felt like I was rushing things too much. And then when I was half-way through my third attempt and it _still_ sucked, I got super frustrated with it.

So, I decided to take a break for a week or two and work on another story that I felt the need to write. That story was supposed to be short, only a few chapters long and I was thinking it might only take a couple weeks to write, a month at most. But this ‘short’ story ended up being more than fifty chapters long and more than 100,000 words and it took all my focus and attention. But I have mostly finished it now (other than editing and stuff) so I have finally been able to return to this story.

Now the thing is I’ve mostly forgotten a lot of my plans for where this story was going to go. But that’s okay because now I don’t feel like I have to force myself to follow a plan, I can just let the story come to me as I write it. Which is my preferred writing method anyway.

Next chapter should be up tomorrow. I might not be able to update as often as I did before the hiatus. I will try though. Even though it’s possible updates might be kind of sporadic sometimes. I’m still editing my other story and need to start my Christmas one soon.

I hope you guys can forgive me for the hiatus and leaving it on that cliff hanger for so long. (I feel really bad about that by the way.) But I’m back to working on this story and feeling good about it, so in theory I should be able to complete it now. And hopefully there are at least some people who still care about it.


	17. Home

“Oh, sounds like your dear sweet brother’s home,” Chara said with an evil grin. “Why don’t we go say ‘hello’? After all it’s been such a long time since I last spoke with him.”

“Don’t you dare fucking touch him,” Sans warned.

_Don’t hurt him, please_ , Frisk pleaded. _He didn’t do anything to you._

Chara ignored both of them as she skipped back into the living room. She went straight to the front door, opening it before Papyrus could.

“Oh, hello Frisk,” he greeted her with a smile.

“Well hello to you too Paps.” Chara was still holding the knife, not even trying to hide it. “Me and Sans were just talking, I think it’s time for me to go back to my own place.”

“If you’re sure you won’t be too lonely. Of course, you’re always welcome to come here and stay for as long as you like. We are your best friends after all.”

Chara basically ignored him as she turned back around to grab Frisk’s overnight bag. As she did so she gave Sans a wink. “I’ll be seeing you two later then,” she said blowing Sans a kiss before skipping past Papyrus out the door.

“Wait, I must insist that you at least stay for lunch. I’m going to be making spaghetti,” Papyrus said. “I know how much you like my spaghetti.”

“No thank you, I have stuff to do,” Chara said not even turning to look at him.

_Where are you going?_ Frisk asked, confused. Was Chara really leaving just like that? What about all those times she’d said she wanted to hurt Papyrus and everyone else Frisk cared about?

“ _Home, like I said,_ ” Chara replied as if nothing strange was happening.

“Well if you’re sure,” Papyrus said.

Chara ignored him as she kept skipping in the direction Frisk’s house lay. Much like she had last time she was in control she looked straight ahead, not bothering to even glance at anything she passed by. The skipping was something she’d done back then too, she had skipped along merrily as she hunted down monsters.

She came to halt though when Sans suddenly teleported in front of her. “Where do you think you’re going?” he said, glaring at her.

“I already told you, I’m going back home where I don’t have see your ugly mug all day,” Chara said in a condescending tone. “Do you _want_ me to go back to trying to kill you right now? Or do you want me to try to kill your brother? Because I can if you really want me to.”

“What? No,” Sans said. “But I’m not gonna let you run off with Frisk’s body like that.”

“Yeah, and what are you going to do to try to stop me? As long as everyone else thinks I’m Frisk you can’t even try to lock me up. How do you think Toriel will feel if she catches you trying to hurt her precious baby?”

“I’ll tell them the truth,” Sans said.

“Yeah and I’ll tell them that I’m Frisk, who do you think they’ll believe? Oh, I’m sure some people might believe you, but most probably won’t. It is kind of a wild claim after all, and if you try to hurt me they’ll get very upset with you. So, I suggest you get out of my way before we’re forced into another fight.” Chara pushed him to the side as she continued down the side walk.

“Don’t you dare…” Sans began.

“Yeah, yeah, I won’t hurt anyone as long as they stay out of my way, so I suggest you do the same.”

“No, I said I’ll fix it and I will. You’re gonna come with me to the lab.” Sans reached out to grab her arm, probably intending to teleport them to the lab. Where he would no doubt lock her up until he figured out a way to get rid of Chara for good. Frisk was cheering for him.

“No,” Chara said swiping her knife at his hand, forcing him to withdraw. “You’re going to stay out of my way or I’m going to be sure to hurt Papyrus. Even if you tell him the truth about me, and assuming he believes it, he’ll probably still just sit there and take it like he did last time. And if you do tell him about me you’re going to be putting him in a position where he has to decide who to believe. Do you really want to do that to him?”

Sans hesitated. “Yeah, well I can’t just let you roam around freely. Not after what you did last time you were in control.”

“You can _try_ lock me up, but you’ll be incurring the wrath of almost the entire monster community. Frisk is the ambassador between monsters and humans, remember? She’s considered a hero for breaking the Barrier, (even though it wouldn’t have been possible without me and Asriel). Not to mention Toriel, you really think she’d ever believe you over me?”

“But…”

“Don’t try to interfere with me again,” Chara said, pointing at him with the knife still in her hand. She then turned back around and started heading for Frisk’s house once more. “Oh and by the way, Frisk loves you.” She didn’t even turn back to see Sans’ reaction.

_Why did you tell him that?_ Frisk asked, outraged. If Sans were to ever hear about that it should’ve come from her, not Chara of all people. Maybe he would think Chara was lying to make him mad or something.

“ _To upset you,_ ” Chara said with small laugh.

_I hate you. You’re the worst._ Frisk pushed her will against Chara’s but got nowhere other than giving them both a headache. A headache that Chara ignored as she continued making her way down the street.

“ _I’ll get my revenge on Sans some other time, when he’s not expecting it,_ ” she said to Frisk as they were closing in on the house.

_I thought you wanted to kill everyone_. Frisk replied. That’s what Chara had been telling her right from the very beginning.

“ _No, I only want to kill Sans because he foiled my plans and killed me way too many times for me to just forgive. And I_ will _kill him, I just can’t do it when there are other people around who would try to stop me. Everyone else I couldn’t care less about. The only reason I said I wanted to kill them too was because the more upset you were the easier it would be for me to take control. And as you can see it worked._ ”

_What are you going to do then?_

Chara ignored her as she reached the house. Unlocking the door, she skipped inside. After closing it she went to Frisk’s room, dropping the overnight bag by the door and placing the knife on the desk.

“You really did make a huge mess of this place,” she said aloud, the disapproval plain to hear in her voice. She was looking at the still very prominent bloodstains on the bed and on the carpet next to the bed, Frisk had never gotten around to cleaning them. “But whatever, I don’t have the time nor the inclination to clean up after you right now.”

She dug into the drawer in Frisk’s desk. Moving aside all the papers and other useless junk piled up in there she pulled out the knife that lay hidden at the bottom. It was the knife that Frisk had gotten from the Underground all those years ago, she’d kept it for some reason, unable to bring herself to get rid of it. She was pretty sure that it had once belonged to Chara back when she was properly alive. Chara brought it out and hid it by wrapping it in thin cloth and putting it in Frisk’s coat pocket.

She then dug into the pocket of Frisk’s jeans pulling out her car keys. Closing the bedroom door, she went back outside, locking the front door once more.

_Where are you going_? Frisk asked as Chara climbed into her car and put the keys into the ignition.

“ _You’ll see,_ ” was all Chara said as she backed out of the driveway.


	18. Failed

“Don’t try to interfere with me again,” Chara said, once more pointing the knife at Sans.

He took a small step back as she turned back around and started walking away. Like she’d said, he couldn’t fight her, not only because he couldn’t risk hurting Frisk but also because Papyrus was still nearby. If Chara was going to insist she was Frisk, Sans couldn’t lock her up the way he wanted to without upsetting a lot people. Chief among them Toriel, who most certainly wouldn’t believe him if he tried to tell her the truth.

“Oh and by the way,” Chara said not even bothering to turn her head to look at him. “Frisk loves you.”

Even though he’d already known that from reading her suicide note it was still a hard thing to hear. Especially after he’d failed her as much as he had.

Unable to stop her, he watched her walk away for another minute before turning to head back to his own house. There was nothing he could do other than going back to finding a way to purge Chara from Frisk’s body without hurting Frisk.

“You okay Sans?” Papyrus asked almost as soon he was through the door. “You look… sad about something.”

“Uh, yeah I’m fine,” Sans lied. He couldn’t tell Papyrus about Chara. Not only was it possible he might not believe it (especially if Chara was going to insist she was Frisk) but Sans also didn’t want to upset him.

“What about Frisk, is she okay?” Papyrus’ question caught Sans off guard a little. “She was acting a bit… odd I guess I would say. It’s unlike her to leave so abruptly.”

“Yeah, Frisk is fine, I think,” Sans lied again. Frisk was most certainly _not_ fine.

What were the chances of Frisk regaining control from Chara any time soon? Not good considering it had taken Chara nine years to gain control from _her_. Did that mean it would be another nine years before Frisk was in control again? Or maybe longer if Chara was stronger. No, there was no way he’d let that happen. He’d surely be able to figure something out long before it got to that point.

“Sans!” Papyrus almost shouted, jogging Sans back to the present. He’d been saying something, probably asking Sans a question, and Sans had been zoning him out, too lost in his own thoughts. “You’ve not heard a single thing I’ve just said, have you?”

“Oh uh, sorry Paps. Could ya repeat that?” Sans said, feeling guilty about ignoring Papyrus.

“I swear Sans as smart as you are, you can still be real empty headed sometimes,” Papyrus said with an exasperated sigh.

“Yeah, you could say I’m a real numb _skull_.”

“Sans, no bad jokes, please,” Papyrus said with another sigh. “I was trying to tell you that Broken Barrier Day is coming up here in a few weeks.” Broken Barrier Day was the anniversary of the day that the Barrier broke, allowing monsters to go to the Surface after several generations of being stuck Underground. It had been dubbed that by Asgore, and despite Toriel’s insistence that they come up with something better, that name had stuck. “I was trying to ask you if you were waiting until then to tell Frisk how you feel about her, or if you weren’t that you should do it anyway. That is the day she broke the Barrier for us after all.”

“Wait, whoa, what are you talking about?”

“Your feelings for Frisk. Undyne and Alphys have been asking me about you two for the past week now, ever since Frisk started sleeping on our couch. They thought at first that you two had finally started dating. But I know you two would’ve told me if you had and it’s not like you’d be able to hide if from me anyway. So, Undyne theorized that you were waiting until Broken Barrier Day to ask her out on a date, and insisted that I asked you about it. And now I am.”

“Uh… things are kinda… complicated between me and Frisk right now,” Sans said, wishing they were talking about anything other than this. ‘Complicated’ didn’t even _begin_ to describe it. Frisk was sharing a body with somebody who wanted to kill him, and that somebody was now the one in control. Now was hardly the time to even start thinking about anything like asking her out on a date.

“Oh, did you two have a disagreement about something? Is that why she was in such a hurry to leave earlier?” Papyrus said. “If you did, I’m sure it’s nothing saying ‘sorry’ won’t fix. Being the super awesome brother that I am I’ll even help you form a proper apology if you want me to.”

“No, me and Frisk didn’t have a fight or anything.” Sans wasn’t technically lying, he and Frisk hadn’t fought. He’d been arguing with Chara who just happened to be in control of Frisk’s body. “She was eager to leave because there was something she remembered she needed to go do.”

“Oh, that’s good then. That means you can ask her out on a date, I’m sure she’ll say ‘yes’. And when you guys get married she’ll be my sister in law.”

“Oh, my gosh Paps, no.” Sans didn’t even know what to say to that. “We’re not even… a thing. And I don’t know if we’re ever going to be… a thing.”

“But you guys like each other, right? Like in the movies I watch with Undyne and Alphys sometimes, you liking each other like that means you’ll start dating. And then you’ll propose to her in a very big romantic way and get married. As your super awesome brother, I’ll of course be your best man and me and Toriel will help you plan everything. Undyne and Alphys will be…”

“Look Paps,” Sans interrupted Papyrus before he could really get going about his fantasy. “I might tell her one day, but not right now, okay? There’s still a few… things we need to sort out first before we can even start _thinking_ about dating, let alone marriage. So just… can we not talk about it about anymore, please?”

“Well okay Sans, if you insist.” Papyrus thankfully let it go (for now anyway). “I do need to start lunch anyway, I’m making spaghetti.” With that Papyrus turned and started pulling out all the necessary pots and ingredients to make his spaghetti.

Feeling relieved that that conversation was finally over, Sans went to his room. His computer and other stuff were in there (somewhere), and he needed to go back to researching a possible way to get rid of Chara.

After searching through the mess that was his room, (maybe Papyrus was right, maybe he should clean it up a little bit, or maybe not), he found the notebook where he had written down everything he knew or suspected about Chara. Even with Frisk’s help that still wasn’t a whole lot, and Chara had apparently refused to say anything to Frisk about herself. Leaving them without much information.

Pretty much the only thing they knew for sure was that Chara was the first human who had fallen into the Underground. She’d been adopted by King Asgore and Queen Toriel. She’d then died along with her adoptive brother Asriel. There weren’t any sources saying how exactly she’d died, the King and Queen had tried not to reveal too much about it, but many suspected it was suicide.

Overall the lack of information about her was frustrating. Sans was tempted to go ask Toriel or Asgore about her, but they might be unwilling to talk about it. They also lost their only son at around the same time Chara had died too after all. (Not to mention it was an undisputed fact that that was when their marital problems had started.) There wasn’t any speculation about how Asriel had died and Sans suspected it was related to Chara’s death somehow. The times of their deaths were just too close for it be a coincidence.

With a sigh, Sans kept flipping through his notebook. He paused on the page where he’d written out everything Frisk had told him about what Chara had done last time she was in control. She’d killed every single monster she’d come across, occasionally going out of her way to kill more, until Judgment Hall where Sans had stopped her. He didn’t want to think about what he recently learned about that encounter and shoved it to the back of his mind. After that Frisk had Reset, and undone everything Chara had done.

Wait a minute, Chara could Reset too. Frisk had said that she could only Reset while in the Underground. What if that was where Chara was heading off to in such a rush? To the Underground to Reset.

Sans threw the notebook on his bed. “Hey uh Paps, I’ll be going out for bit, gotta check something,” he said, poking his head through his bedroom door. Without even waiting to see if Papyrus had heard him or not, he teleported out to look for Chara.


	19. Chocolate

“You know Frisk, you never ate enough chocolate,” Chara said. The first stop she’d made was at a convenience store where she had brought as much chocolate as she could. She’d used the money Frisk kept in the glovebox of her car, which amounted to enough to buy ten full sized chocolate bars. She was sitting in the car, still parked outside the store, finishing off her second one.

_Is this why you wanted control from me? So, that you could eat more chocolate?_ Frisk liked chocolate as much as the next person but apparently not nearly as much as Chara did. Who needed to buy ten chocolate bars at once? Unless it was for a party or something.

“No, but it is a nice perk.” Chara tossed the candy wrapper out the window. Turns out not only was she a psychopathic murderer she was also an unapologetic litterer. She immediately grabbed another. Unwrapping the top half, she took a big bite out of it.

“ _You know, I doubt Sans feels the same way about you as you do for him_ ,” she said in their shared mind space, her mouth to full to speak aloud.

_Yeah, like you know how Sans feels about anything._ Frisk wasn’t sure if Sans felt the same way about her as she did about him, but she wasn’t about to admit that to Chara. He probably just thought of her as a good friend. Which was perfectly fine with Frisk, it’s not like they could date right now anyway.

“ _He can’t love you since he knows you tried to kill yourself. Seriously, how could anybody love someone stupid enough to try to kill themselves. Not to mention the cutting thing, he knows about that too._ ”

Frisk was certain Chara was only saying these things to upset her. It was working. Sans knew why she did those things and that given the circumstances they were justified. And he had proven that he was still her friend and still cared about her. So, there wasn’t any reason to believe he thought less of her. But despite that logic, a small part of Frisk almost believed Chara.

“ _You’re not going answer, huh?_ ” Chara said with a grin after several seconds of silence.

Frisk didn’t reply, refusing to fall for Chara’s bait. If she said anything Chara would just make fun of her some more and there would be no way to silence her this time.

“Be like that then,” Chara complained aloud. She finished her chocolate bar in silence, once more throwing the wrapping out the window. “It’s probably time to get back to business anyway,” she said as she grabbed another candy bar and unwrapping it.

Using her free hand, she turned the keys in the ignition and backed out of the convivence store’s parking lot and onto the road again. Setting the car back into drive, she started heading for wherever it was that she wanted to go. Where could that possibly be? And more to the point what would she do once she got there? But at least she followed all the traffic laws. Even though that might only be because she didn’t want to get pulled over by the cops.

After about another ten minutes or so of driving in silence, it became clear that Chara was headed for Mount. Ebott. The place where the Underground was located. The place where they could activate their Reset powers.

_Wait, you’re not going to Reset, are you?_ Just the idea was too much to bear. After everything that had happened Frisk didn’t think she could take a Reset. It had been nine years, she’d been a teenager when she’d fallen into the Underground. Now that she was an adult she didn’t want to go back to that. And everyone would forget about her, her friends, her adoptive mother, and Sans. She couldn’t let them forget about her after all this time had passed. After she’d gotten to know them all so well.

“ _If I did, you precious boyfriend Sans would forget all about you. Wouldn’t that be tragic?_ ” Chara taunted, not answering the question. “ _And then I could kill everyone again and face off against him in Judgment Hall. And he would_ hate _you. Wouldn’t it be fun to have the person you love kill you over and over again because of how much he hated you?_ ”

_Please don’t_. Frisk begged. There were few things she could imagine that would be worse.

“ _How many times do you think he’d be able kill us? I got a lot of practice in last time and almost beat him, I think. But it’s been nine years, I’d no doubt die quite a few times before I got as good as I was back then. And maybe after I kill Sans I’ll Reset and do it again and again until I can do it flawlessly. Wouldn’t you like that?_ ”

_Please Chara, don’t._ Frisk tried to take control again but got nowhere, as expected. _Why are you doing this? What do you want?_

“ _I want vengeance against everyone who’s wronged me, including Sans and kind of you too. But mostly Sans._ ”

_Please, I’m begging you don’t do this_. Frisk pleaded. She was too weak to take control and powerless to do anything to stop Chara. All she could do was beg and plead for mercy. But Chara hadn’t listened to her before and didn’t seem to be now. _Maybe we could reach some kind of truce or something. Maybe we could help you get revenge on the other people who wronged you, so that you don’t have to hurt Sans or Reset._

“You really think a solution like that would be possible.” Chara said aloud as they reached Mount. Ebott. She kept driving around, probably heading to the other side. The side where Frisk and presumably Chara had fallen in. “You seem to be forgetting how many times Sans killed us. You honestly expect me to just forgive and forget when that’s the case?”

_He only did that because of how many people_ you _killed. You can’t honestly be mad at him about that._

Chara finished off her candy bar, tossing the wrapper to the side once more. “ _I’m not saying him killing us wasn’t justified. I’m just mad because of how many times he did it and the fact that I never got the satisfaction of finally beating him. Like Undyne killed me a bunch too, but I’m not mad at her because I ended up beating her eventually. And I won’t feel satisfied until I beat Sans too._ ”

Was this like some kind of game to Chara? Is that really all she cared about?

_Maybe you could beat him without killing him and then leave us alone?_ Frisk suggested. She didn’t want Chara to hurt Sans, but as long as she didn’t kill him it wouldn’t be too bad. And maybe once Chara was satisfied about defeating Sans she would leave.

“ _No, beating him involves killing him._ ” Chara said as if Frisk was being silly to suggest otherwise. “ _It’s like those games you play sometimes. When you get to a difficult boss that you go at for several hours. Would you be satisfied if at the end of the fight when you finally beat him, he was perfectly fine and it was nothing but a friendly contest? No, you’d be pissed._ ”

_This is real life though. It’s not the same._

“Oh, you’ll never understand,” Chara said with an exasperated sigh as she pulled the car to a stop, setting it in park.

She gathered what was left of her candy bars, shoving them in her pockets with the knife. She then took the keys out of the ignition, also putting them in her pocket, and exited the car. Without even bothering to lock it she began hiking up the mountain.

The whole way up she didn’t say a single thing, out loud or otherwise. She didn’t even react to anything Frisk did or said, she was completely ignoring her.

It took Chara about half an hour to reach a cave near the top. It was overgrown with vines and almost invisible unless you were right on top of it. From the bottom, it had looked like just some vines growing on the mountain side.

“Here it is. You remember this Frisk?” Chara said as she entered the cave, pushing some of the vines to the side.

_No, I don’t_. Frisk didn’t remember anything about when she had fallen. Didn’t even remember climbing the mountain, let alone what the cave had looked like.

“Figures,” Chara said with a shrug as she went deeper into the cave. “Now, where is it?” After several minutes of searching Chara uncovered a hole in the cave floor. It had been covered over by vines that had presumably grown over it over the past nine years.

Chara sat on ground dangling her legs into the hole. “I probably should’ve brought a rope or something. But oh well, here goes nothing.”

_Please don’t_. Frisk begged as she tried to take control from Chara again. She was desperate, she couldn’t let this happen. But she was too weak and Chara scooted herself over the edge, falling into the Underground once more.


	20. Underground

“Oh Asriel, where are you?” Chara called out, her voice echoing off the cave walls. She’d landed in the same bed of flowers Frisk had woken up in all those years ago, when she’d fallen into the Underground. There were more now but they were the same yellow flowers and had provided a relatively soft landing.

“For the last time Frisk, I’m not coming up to the Surface with you. It wouldn’t do anyone any good,” Flowey’s familiar voice came from nearby.

Frisk had tried on multiple occasions to get Flowey to come up to the Surface with everyone. She’d even brought him a nice flower pot to hop into. She’d been planning on keeping him in her window sill, or maybe putting him in a nice garden someplace. But he’d always adamantly refused and she’d mostly given up. Only asking him now once a year, on Broken Barrier Day, the anniversary of when monsters got to leave the Underground.

“It’s not Frisk,” Chara said as she sauntered over to where Flowey had popped out of the ground. Which was the same place Frisk had first encountered him, where he’d tried to kill her and Toriel had stopped him. “Has Frisk ever referred to you by your real name? Because as far as I remember I don’t think she has.”

“Chara?” Flowey frowned at her. “I thought Frisk was keeping you locked up.”

“She was for a while. But I’ve finally got the better of her.”

_For now_. Frisk promised. She’d find a way to gain control again. At least Chara hadn’t Reset yet even though she could have now that she was in the Underground once more. Maybe Frisk might be able to figure something out before she did.

“Oh, so are you going to Reset now? Undo all her work and destroy her life?” Flowey’s voice lacked any hint on how he felt about that idea.

“Yeah, eventually I’ll Reset,” Chara said. “But there’s something I need to do first.”

“And that is?” Flowey prompted.

“You’ll see if you decide to keep an eye on me and stuff. Which I have no doubt that you will,” Chara said before walking past Flowey with a dismissive wave of her hand.

_What are going to do_? Frisk asked. Whatever it was she hoped it would take a while to give her or maybe Sans some time to figure out a way to get rid of Chara.

“ _You’ll see too since you have no way_ not _to watch_ ,” Chara said.

She ignored any more of Frisk’s questions after that. She walked purposefully through the Ruins towards Toriel’s old homestead. She didn’t pause to bask in any of the nostalgia the way Frisk would have. The Ruins were empty anyway. All the Froggits and everyone else were gone, moved to the Surface. In fact, the entire Underground was basically abandoned, no one wanted to continue to live in a place they’d been trapped in for almost all their life.

Chara made her way through the Ruins to Snowdin forest, the door’s seal having been corroded away a long time ago. Snowdin proper was also pretty much abandoned, as were Waterfall and Hotlands.

The entire walk Chara didn’t say anything or even so much as acknowledge Frisk’s existence. No matter how much Frisk prodded at her, it was almost like she wasn’t there at all. It was annoying to say the least and infuriating. But there was nothing Frisk could do about it right now, no matter how hard she tried.

Eventually Chara reached Judgement Hall, with its familiar golden walls and warm light coming the tinted windows. It too was empty, not a soul in sight. The tall golden pillars were unpolished and slightly dirty but were still imposing nonetheless.

“Here we go,” Chara said as settled down to wait behind one the pillars. “Now all we gotta do it wait.” She pulled out one her chocolate bars as she sat cross-legged on the floor.

_What are we waiting for_? Frisk asked, not really expecting an answer.

“Well Sans of course,” Chara said as if that should’ve occurred to Frisk. “Eventually it should occur to him that I intend to Reset and he’ll come here to try to stop me.”

_Why are you waiting for him_? Frisk asked, dreading the answer.

“Really Frisk? You should know the answer to that by now. I want to kill him. I couldn’t finish him off earlier because Papyrus came home, and he would’ve stopped me. I don’t have any desire to fight Papyrus, he’s too easy and I don’t have any quarrel with him anyway. But _here_ no one’s likely to interrupt us and I’ll be able to finish Sans off, getting revenge on both of you. And also, it’s more fitting that I kill him here since this is where he killed me a bunch of times.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, but I wanted to get it up on Christmas (today). I'm doing a POV change here, so this was the most logical place to cut the chapter.


	21. Judgement Hall

The first place Sans checked was Frisk’s house. He teleported straight into her living room. It was empty, no sign of her or anybody else.

“Frisk, Chara,” he called out. No answer.

A quick check of the other rooms in the house revealed that she’d been here but had apparently left. Her overnight bag had been placed in her room but other than that there was no sign of her in house. He looked out the window to see that Frisk’s car was no longer in the driveway, meaning she’d certainly gone somewhere. But where?

Maybe he should tell someone else about the situation with Frisk and Chara, just in case. Maybe they’d even believe him if he told them about it when Chara wasn’t around to contradict him. Toriel probably wouldn’t believe him, and even if she did there had been a time when she’d thought of Chara as her child as well. So, she probably wouldn’t want to hurt her. And telling Papyrus would undoubtedly upset him. But Undyne and Alphys might believe him and be willing help.

First though, he should probably ensure that Chara wasn’t about to Reset. He could worry about stopping her once he was sure she wouldn’t, or more preferably couldn’t Reset to nine years ago, erasing monsters ever making it to the Surface. As well as a bunch of other important things. Like how his friendship with Frisk had evolved into what it was today.

If Chara was planning on Resetting she’d be heading for Mount. Ebott. She might even already be there given the head start she had on him.

After gathering his magic, Sans made several teleport hops until he was standing on Mount. Ebott’s plateau. The one that they’d all stood on after exiting the Underground for the first time. Sans had never gotten over how beautiful the view was from up here. But he didn’t have time to dwell on it as he made another teleport. This time into Judgement Hall.

He was about to teleport again, to as near the entrance to the Underground as he could, when he heard a familiar voice come from behind him. “Heya Sansy, good of you to finally show up.”

Turning around he saw Frisk, or more accurately Frisk’s body being controlled by Chara. It would be impossible to miss the differences between the two of them. Where Frisk normally held herself more stiffly and in a closed off manner, Chara stood loosely as if she had not a care in the world. They even spoke differently. Frisk was soft spoken and Chara was anything but.

Their facial expressions though were the biggest difference between them. Every time Chara looked at him it felt like she was imagining how much fun she would have ripping him to pieces. Sans didn’t think he’d ever seen any amount of real hatred like that on Frisk’s face. Occasional anger and frustration sure, but never hatred.

“Hey Chara,” he said, pushing aside his anger and revulsion at seeing Chara using Frisk’s body like that. He put his hands in his pockets, trying to look nonchalant despite the circumstances. At least she hadn’t Reset yet even though she no doubt could. “And I guess Frisk too, assuming she can hear me.”

“Yeah, she can hear you,” Chara said, starting to slowly make her way towards Sans. “She’s aware of _everything_ I sense and do. Even when she would rather not be.” She had her hands clasped behind her back, no doubt holding a knife she was planning on stabbing him with when she got close enough.

“What are ya trying to accomplish here?” Sans asked as she continued to slowly close the distance between them.

“Oh, not much, just some good old fashioned revenge,” Chara replied with a shrug, her hands still hidden behind her back.

“On who?” Sans asked, prepping himself to dodge the attack he knew would come as soon as she reached him. Maybe as he dodged he could grab her arm and teleport them out of the Underground and out of where she could Reset. What he would after that and where he’d take her, he had no idea but he could figure it out when he got there. What was most important was keeping her out of the Underground and away from anyone who she’d want to hurt.

She continued walking towards him, was almost in arms’ reach. He was keeping a careful watch on her face and upper body, waiting for the inevitable knife slash. This proved to be a major mistake as she swung her foot around into the side of his knee, hard enough to cause him to stumble. Messing up his attempt to dance away from her and the knife slash he knew was coming.

“On you,” she said as she finally brought the knife down.


	22. Trick

“On you,” Chara said with an awful calmness as she slashed at Sans with the knife, ignoring Frisk’s frantic attempts to stop her.

Stumbling due to Chara’s dirty trick, he was unable to dodge this time. The knife slashed into him diagonally. Powered by the force of Chara’s hatred for him, it was almost like there was no resistance as it sliced through his ribcage.

No, no, it couldn’t be real. This couldn’t really be happening. How could Frisk have let this happen? Chara watched with glee while Frisk watched with mounting horror as red leaked out of the slash line. That couldn’t be blood, could it?

“Oh,” Sans said, sounding surprised as he glanced down at his knife wound with its spreading redness. “I uh guess ya got me, nice trick. But uh maybe ya can leave Frisk alone now that ya got what ya wanted.” He was already starting to turn to dust, crumbling away at the edges. “And uh Frisk, I love you, so don’t blame yourself, okay?”

Those were his last words as his body fell to dust and the horrible awful sound of his soul shattering rang out across Judgement Hall. Where he’d just been was now nothing but a pile of dust and his clothing.

“Ha, I win, fuck you Sans,” Chara shouted in triumph. She threw the knife to ground with a loud clatter. “And his last words… gosh that was so perfect.”

_Sans…_ Frisk felt numb and empty. She wanted to break down and sob, but without control of her body she couldn’t. All she could do was watch through eyes and feel Chara’s grin on her face, so very contrary to how she herself was feeling.

She’d tried so hard to prevent this. But she’d failed.

“This went a whole lot better than I thought it would,” Chara said. “I thought for sure that he’d be harder to dust than that. But it turns out all I needed to do was trick him.”

Frisk didn’t respond. She never wanted to speak to Chara again. She wanted to kill Chara. She’d never wanted to kill anyone before but Chara deserved to die for this. And Frisk was going to find some way to get rid of her once and for all, no matter what it took.

“I bet you’re all upset, huh?” Chara said in a cocky tone. “You gonna get mad at me and say mean things to me? You gonna try to wrest control from me again so you can sob your stupid little eyes out?”

Frisk still didn’t respond. She closed herself off from Chara as best she could instead.

“Really Frisk, you’re not gonna reply?” Chara said, sounding annoyed. “You know part of the reason I did this was to upset you. Where’s the fun if you just close yourself off like some angsty teen locking themselves in their room? You’re supposed to be crying and having a cow right now. Especially, after his final words to you. He said that he loved you right before he died, that had to have broken your weak little heart.”

Frisk again didn’t respond. She wasn’t going to give Chara the satisfaction. That was literally the only act of defiance left to her. And she wasn’t about to give it up, no matter how much she wanted to tell Chara to shut the fuck up.

“Ugh, prissy little bitch,” Chara complained as she glanced around Judgement Hall. “What am I going to do now though? Should I gather up his dust and show Papyrus to see how he reacts? Especially since I’m not gonna keep it a secret that I did it.”

Frisk wanted to demand that she not do that, but didn’t. Anything she said wouldn’t ever sway Chara. And besides Frisk would really rather not think about anything right now, least of all Sans’ death. She couldn’t even cry and sob about it the way she so desperately wanted to.

She could’ve prevented this from happening. She’d even tried to but then Sans had stopped her and convinced her not to try again. She shouldn’t have listened to him.

But now it was too late. Chara had control and Sans was dead as a result.

“Oh, my gosh Frisk, answer me,” Chara shouted, her voice echoing. She stomped her foot in frustration. “I just killed your boyfriend and you’re not even going to say anything to me, really?”

Frisk stayed silent.

“Fine, be a bitch,” Chara said. “Let’s see how you like this then?”

She walked over to the pile of dust that had once been Sans. She grabbed his blue jacket and put it on herself, not even bothering to brush the dust off. She then bent down and ran her fingers through his dust, it felt like extremely fine sand. She scooped some of it up in her hands, letting it sprinkle through the gaps in her fingers.

Frisk tried to distance herself from what her body was seeing and feeling. She didn’t want to think about it, let alone see it and feel it. How could Chara be so cold and callous?

“Let’s see what it tastes like,” Chara said with a grin. It was obvious she was trying to get some kind of reaction out of Frisk, a demand or attempt to stop her from doing that.

Frisk however was having none of it, instead she continued to try distance herself from her body. It was even kind of working. As Chara stuck her tongue out to press against the dust in her hands Frisk was barely aware of it, though it still horrified her.

“Still nothing?” Chara practically growled. “Are you really going to just sit there and let me do whatever I want to your boyfriend’s dust?”

Frisk wasn’t letting her do anything. There was just nothing she could do to stop it. So, why bother giving Chara the satisfaction of her trying? What was the point of even responding to anything when nothing she did changed things anyway?


End file.
